Due to the fear of the Corona virus not many people are coming to Abids to look for books on the pavements on Sundays. But, barring a couple most of the sellers are putting up their books on sale. They have also given up being hopeful of making a good deal of the few books they are able to sell to those crazy enough to visit Abids for their books. I am one of those crazy ones visiting Abids in these times when the threat of the Corona virus hangs above everyone’s heads. The surprising thing is that I am able to find wonderful titles every time I go there. Since the past few months I have been able to find gems I couldn’t find anywhere else. Last Sunday too I found seven titles all of them equally good.
The first find was a title that I had seen several copies a few years back but hadn’t the sense to pick it up. So this time when I saw a nice copy of ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ by Tea Obreht I took it.
Then in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees each, from which I had picked up nearly half a dozen titles in the past few Sundays, and which seems to be never growing smaller, I found a copy of ‘Cleopatra’s Sister’ by Penelope Lively.
In the same pile I also found a nice copy of ‘Difficult Daughters’ by Manju Kapur. Though I had come across this title many times I hadn’t bought it because of the price quoted by the sellers. Now that it was available for just fifty rupees I thought I’d buy it and so I did.
There are a couple of sellers in Abids for whom books are just commodities and treat them as such. They quote their prices after taking a look at the buyer. For some reason though I have bought a lot of books from them they act as if they are seeing me for the first time. They quote outrageous prices and usually I throw down the book in annoyance and walk away without buying the book no matter how much they try to sell it to me. Last Sunday I found three good titles with them. The seller quoted an outrageous price that I wasn’t willing to pay. Then he started pleading, haggling, and ultimately came down to what I wanted to pay. Even that was more than what the books were worth. I did not want to bargain too hard and ended up buying the three books.
The first one was a copy of ‘The Men Who Ruled India, Vol. I The Founders’ by Philip Woodruff. I bought it for two reasons. First was the subject and second reason was that it was a Jonathan Cape Paperback and published in 1963, a year before I was born. It had a wonderful cover with a painting of Indian Royalty and British people. There was no mention of it anywhere inside and I wonder whose painting it was.
The second book was a hardcover title without a jacket. It was kept open so that the inside title page would be visible and this was how I spotted ‘I Would Have Saved Them If I Could’ by Leonard Michaels. I hadn’t heard of Leonard Michaels and the reason I bought it was the name Farrar, Strauss and Giroux on the bottom of the title page. Later I learnt that Michaels was a short story writer.
The third title that I almost missed and found only at the last moment was a Penguin title called ‘a journey with elsa cloud’ by Leila Hadley .This was another travel memoir set in India and that was enough to make me buy it. I paid a little more than three hundred books for these three titles.
The last title I found was another travel/reportage title and I found it at Chikkadpally. It was a copy of ‘Balkan Ghosts’ by Robert D. Kaplan and looked like it was another good book by an author I hadn’t heard before. The few paragraphs I read before I bought it sounded something similar to Ryszard Kapuscinski’s writing. I have to read the entire book to find out how good it is.
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