The previous Sunday I had missed my trip to the Abids book bazaar as I was travelling and not in town. I was counting the days for the next Sunday. But on Saturday which was a government holiday because it was the second Saturday of the month I went out for a routine I follow on Saturdays. At a newspaper vendor in Lakdikapul I buy ‘Mint’, ‘Business Line’ and ‘Business Standard’ for the Saturday supplements that I go through over a cup of chai in an Irani that is right beside the vendor’s. Afterwards I walked over to a second hand bookseller who spreads out a few books on the pavement. There I saw a copy of ‘If I Should Die Before I Wake’ by Michelle Morris that I bought.
On the next day, Sunday, I was at Abids. Around a decade ago, I guess, I found a nice copy of ‘Paro: Dreams of Passion’ by Namita Gokhale that I read soon after. I was glad I found it because reading it convinced me that wonderful stories have been written by women writers in the seventies. Last Sunday I found another copy of the same title but the copy I found was a hardcover one, with the jacket and the cover was worth every rupee of the hundred rupees I paid for it. The other thing was that it seemed to be a first edition and published in 1984 by Chatto & Windus, The Hogarth Press, London. On the back was a black and white photograph of the author.
I am aware that there are some very good writers writing wonderful books in regional languages and I am also amazed at how so few of them are translated into other languages especially English. It isn’t always possible to get books by such writers in the original language even if you are aware of the writer. There are many writers you don't know anything about- not their names and not even titles of their books. I always try to buy translated works if I cannot find them in the original language if they are in Telugu or Hindi, two languages I can read and write. Last Sunday at Abids I came across a book with an attractive cover. It had all the appearance of those books that were published by Indian publishing houses in the seventies. The title on the cover said ‘Against Myself and Other Stories’ by Rajee Seth. It was a slim volume of just eighty two pages containing eleven short stories written by Rajee Seth and translated into English by Jasjit Purewal.
On the way home at Chikkadpally at one of the sellers I saw a stack of books that I sifted through and found two titles worth picking up. I am embarrassed to confess that I haven’t read ‘Dr Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak so far except for a few short stories. I found a copy of ‘Safe Conduct’ by Boris Pasternak that has ‘an autobiography, poems, and short stories’ as it says on the cover. ‘Safe Conduct’ is the autobiography, Aerial Ways, Letters from Tula, and The Childhood of Luvers are the three short stories in it as well as more than thirty poems.
I had found few titles of James Baldwin though I am yet to read them. In the same stack where I found ‘Safe Conduct’ by Boris Pasternak I found a copy of ‘Nobody Knows My Name’ by James Baldwin. It is a collection of his essays published in various places. I got these two books for only twenty five rupees each. I was glad that the Sunday at Abids yielded a good haul.
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