The Sunday Haul (on 06-09-2020)

 

It was yet another bright and sunny morning last Sunday here in Hyderabad. I was at Abids eager to take home another haul of wonderful titles that I was yet to find. I had to also look for the titles I had missed buying the previous Sunday. Though I did not find all the title I had not bought earlier I managed to take home a haul of a record fourteen books last Sunday. The large haul filled my heart with a strange joy as I went home.

A long time back I had found a copy of ‘Paraja’ by Gopinath Mohanty. It was a tome running into hundreds of pages but I picked it up though I had not heard of the author before. However, I haven’t read ‘Paraja’ yet but when I saw ‘The Bed of Arrows and Other Stories’ by the same author- Gopinath Mohanty last Sunday at Abids I picked it up. It was a Sahitya Akademi publication and was a hardcover copy with the jacket. The introduction was by Sitakanta Mahapatra, an Odia poet I read. I got it for sixty rupees.

The same seller had another book titled ‘Vijay Tendulkar’ that I had seen the previous Sunday but hadn’t bought. I picked up the book and flipped the pages. There were a few essays but Vijay Tendulkar himself and articles on him by others. Vijay Tendulkar is the playwright of ‘Ghasiram Kotwal’ an acclaimed play so I decided to buy the book. This book too I got for sixty rupees.

Further down the road was the seller where I had seen a title I had not bough the previous Sunday. Luckily it was there and I picked up ‘The Gentleman in the Parlour’ by Somerset Maugham. I have a copy of it already but the cover is damaged so I bought this copy last Sunday since it had a good and undamaged cover. I got it for forty rupees.

There are many instances when I have picked up a book purely on a hunch. It was either the cover, the title, or the publisher that made me buy the book. I usually take a good look at all the books that have been made into movies. Last Sunday I came across one such title-‘A Fine Madness’ by Eliott Baker in a pile of books selling for twenty rupees only. On the back cover it said it was made into a movie starring Sean Connery and Joanne Woodward.

A couple of years back I had seen a copy of ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter’ by Mario Vargas Llosa I stupidly did not buy it. I do not understand why I did not buy it though I knew Llosa was a fantastic writer and I should buy that book. Anyway, last Sunday I chanced upon a nice copy of ‘In Praise of the Step Mother’ by Mario Vargas Llosa in the same pile of books for twenty rupees.

There’s a seller in Abids to whom I offload all the books I’ve read and do not want to keep. In turn he keeps aside some titles that he’s got for me to take a look before he puts them on the pavement. Last Sunday he took out some titles from his sack and out of those I chose the following ones:

‘Notes from a Big Country’ by Bill Bryson. I realized I haven’t read this book and all these years I had thought it was another title of his ‘Lost Continent.’

‘Northanger Abbey’ by Jane Austen. I want to begin reading the classics with this title maybe.

‘The Heart of the Matter’ by Graham Greene. I already have a couple of copies of this title but bought it nevertheless.

‘Men at War’ edited by Ernest Hemingway. I haven’t heard about this book so I took it.

‘The Year of the Young Rebels’ by Stephen Spender. I bought it for the striking red cover and the title, apart from the fact that the author is Stephen Spender whose poetry I’ve been reading since a long time.

‘A Passage to India’ by EM Forster. This too I haven’t read so far. I have been meaning to read it but never found a good copy so I took it.

‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ by Alain de Botton. As one gets older it is to philosophy one turns to. I am 57, just the age to start reading philosophy, and besides I have always been fascinated by philosophy though it takes a pretty long time for me to grasp what is being said.

On the way home from Abids with a dozen titles in the haul and feeling smug I stopped at Chikkadpally to check out the wares of a seller. I had been looking high and low for a Naguib Mahfouz title since long. Only the other day I was reading ‘The Pillars of Hercules’ by Paul Theroux in which he writes about meeting Mahfouz just a few days after he had been stabbed. After reading it I was keen to find a title by Naguib Mahfouz, and last Sunday I finally spotted a copy of ‘Autumn Quail’ by Naguib Mahfouz. I was pretty thrilled to find that it was a novel about a young, corrupt bureaucrat which I am, a bureaucrat but not young or corrupt!

At another seller who sets up shop at a corner of the RTC X Roads I spotted a nice copy of ‘Lantern Slides’ by Edna O’Brien. It is a collection of twelve short stories by a master storyteller. I am very glad I stopped though I already had thirteen books in my bag. I would have missed this wonderful book if I had sped past without taking a look.

This is another record haul. I spent a total of five hundred and eighty rupees for these fourteen books which means roughly forty rupees per book.