The Sunday Haul (on 16-02-2020)

The previous Sunday I had been to Abids only for a brief while, long enough to share a cup of tea and have a brief talk with Jai who dropped in. I left without a glance at the books since I had to return home to see off my mother leaving for Delhi. So last Sunday it felt like I had not been to Abids after ages even though it was only a week. The weather on Sunday looked like it was already summer. It was uncomfortably warm in the open sun and I had the sense to bring along a cap. Once I began to look at the books I forgot all about the weather and focused on the titles on display. I managed to find three books in all, two at Abids and the third at Chikkadpally.

I have quite a few copies of short story collections by many writers- Alice Munro, Alistair Macleod, William Trevor, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, Raymond Carverand also several anthologies. Only the previous month and also at the Hyderabad Book Fair recently I picked up more than a couple of short story collections. There are some writers like AE Coppard, Sean O’ Faolain whose short stories I haven’t had the fortune of finding anywhere, and when I saw their stories in a copy of ‘The Oxford Book of Short Stories Selected by VS Pritchett’ I took it. There are altogether forty one stories in this book.

I have exactly four years before I retire. I am getting drawn towards articles dealing with retirement and in many of such articles I read the common thread is that one has to prepare for it. I’ve realized that I haven’t prepared for it and that I have only four years to do it. There isn’t much that I have saved and I don’t even own a flat or any kind of dwelling. Since I have only four years to prepare for retirement I want to learn as much as I can about retirement and what to do about it. The thought of retiring is slightly scary but at the same time it promises to be liberating. In the hope that I might find something useful I picked up a nice copy of ‘Retired but Not Tired’ by BK Trehan and Indu Trehan.

There are books that have irresistible cover pages and some have illustrations inside that are too beautiful to ignore and if any book has any of these I buy it even if the subject is something I am not very interested in. Last Sunday at Chikkadpally a seller had a set of four volumes, two with colourful jackets and two without. The two volumes with jackets were a copy of ‘The Ramayana’ Text by Lakshmi Lal Illustrated by Badri Narayan, and another –Worship of Shiva and both said on the cover that the illustrations inside were by Badri Narayan. Now I know enough of art that Badri Narayan was a famous name and decided to take a look at one of the books. The illustrations inside were so beautiful that I wanted to buy both the volumes. In the end I decided to buy the copy of ‘The Ramayana’ Text by Lakshmi Lal Illustrated by Badri Narayan that had the cover more or less intact. I got it for hundred rupees only.