Last
Sunday was the first one after the Diwali festival and all the regular shops
were closed which meant that the second hand book sellers at Abids were at
their usual places. As usual I went around but did not pick up some good titles
I should have bought. For example I saw an old copy of ‘The Postman Always
Rings Twice’ by James M.Cain that had the back cover missing but otherwise was
in better shape than the copy I had found many years ago. But I did not buy it
for some reason. I also missed buying the copy of ‘Mango Coloured Fish’ by
Kaveri Nambisan that was still there in the same pile I had seen it the other
Sunday. Maybe next week I will pick it up.
However
I did buy a book by an author I had always hoped to find. I found a nice copy
of ‘Post Office’ by Charles Bukowski. I
have read a lot about Bukowski but had never found anything by him at Abids or
any of the second hand book stores I frequent. Finding ‘Post Office’ was a
lucky thing for me and the icing on the cake was that I got the book for just
fifty rupees.
Something
was missing, I thought, while reading travel books. I couldn’t place my finger
on it but last week when I was reading Tim Butcher’s ‘Chasing the Devil’ in
which he traces the same route that Graham Greene took in ‘Journey Without
Maps’, I realized that I did not know where Sierra Leone was. Then I knew I had
to get an atlas. It had always been in my mind to buy either a good atlas or a
globe but somehow I couldn’t find them. But last Sunday I spotted a large sized
hardcover copy of ‘Bartholomew New International Atlas’ and after flipping
through a few pages bought it. Every night before going to sleep I am trying to
look at the map of at least one country carefully. I realize how little I know
about the countries of the world, especially African countries.
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