The Sunday Haul (on 17-08-2025)

For once the weather forecasts by the Met Dept as well as weather-enthusiasts were totally off the mark as it did not rain on the days they said it would rain. I had thought it would rain on Sunday also and in fact prayed it wouldn’t rain in the mornings until afternoon when I would have finished my rounds of the book market there. It happened exactly as I prayed, a rare occurrence in my life prayers getting answered!, as it did not rain until about two in the afternoon. 

It was cloudy though when I started for Abids, stopping at Chikkadpally first to check out the books by the sellers there. I struck gold when I found a hardcover copy of ‘Rebel Sultans’ by Manu S. Pillai, an author whose books I hadn’t read yet but had read his columns. 

I had already read the book a long time back and also have a copy but when I saw the copy of ‘A Bend in the River’ by V.S. Naipaul with a different cover that was too attractive to ignore I bought it. This I found at Chikkadpally with a seller who I notice is always reading from a book and hardly pays attention to those buying his books. I think he is the only seller who reads the books he sells. I got it for sixty rupees. After buying this book I took the bus to Abids. 

Once again, the second time on last Sunday I found another copy of a book I already have but with a different cover that was too attractive to ignore. I saw a copy of ‘Life: A User’s Manual’ by Georges Perec, a copy that was far better than the copy I had bought a couple of years ago. I haven’t yet read it but I hope to read this copy. 

In the same shelf I saw a copy, a nice one in perfect condition, of ‘Ideology & Socialism’ by Andre Beteille whose essays I’ve read in newspapers like The Hindu many times. But this was the first book by Beteille that I found so bought it right away. I got both the above books for three hundred rupees. 

Just before I started for home, I took a last look at a seller where I spotted a bright cover that was too attractive to ignore and picked it up to see what it was. It was a copy of ‘Gendethimma’ by Srikrishna Alanahalli, translated by P.P. Giridhar into English from the original novel in Kannada.  On the back I read that Srikrishna Alanahalli was one of the foremost Navya movement novelists and is second to none in his depiction of rural Karnataka. I couldn’t resist the beautiful cover with a drawing by Vaikuntam (Thota Vaikuntam?) and also the fact that I wanted to read it so I bought it. I got it for only thirty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 10-08-2025)

 

Last week it had been raining cats and dogs in Hyderabad causing much inconvenience to traffic and also me because I was worried the rain might continue to Sunday too and that I would not be able to go to Abids. Luckily it did not rain at all last Sunday though it was cloudy but no sign of rain. Praying it would not rain till afternoon when I usually finish my trip to Abids I left a little early. First I got to Chikkadpally to check out the books with the few sellers who lay out their books on the pavement.

With one seller I saw a beautiful copy of ‘The Case for India’ by Will Durant, a hardcover that was published by Strand Book Store, Mumbai and was a limited-edition copy. I loved the cover with the title in light yellow leaping at the eye of the beholder. It was slightly pricey at a hundred and fifty rupees that I did not mind paying since I have seen copies, scores of them, of ‘The Story of Philosophy’ at Abids and in second-hand bookstores in Hyderabad. This was an entirely new title by Will Durant that I was not aware of so I bought it. 

Ever since I visited Kohima in Nagaland and also Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh I have been smitten by the North East and its people. So, when I saw a copy of ‘A Resurgent Northeast: Narratives of Change’ by Ashish Kundra with the cover with pictures of three tribal men of one of the tribes in the North East I bought it right away. After buying these two books at Chikkadpally I started for Abids hoping I would not find anything interesting. 

I had read about ‘Gift from the Sea’ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh sometime back as being a good book about but never found it anywhere. Last Sunday I picked up a beautiful almost new copy of this title that I got for only twenty rupees. I wonder if it is something like ‘A Year by the Sea’ by Joan Anderson. 

I’ve never read anything by Colin McInnes though I saw a lot of his novels at Abids. But this title I found was a collection of excerpts from his stories and novels including some essays. I saw a copy of ‘Absolute MacInnes’ edited by Tony Gould in a heap of Rs.50 books and bought it. 

Earlier in previous visits I had seen copies of ‘Between the Lines’ by Kuldip Nayar, a veteran journalist in India known for his political insights into major developments. Last Sunday I saw an almost brand new copy of ‘Between the Lines’ and bought it without a second thought, and surprisingly the seller wanted only a hundred rupees for this copy. 

The Sunday Haul (on 03-08-2025)

 

It was a partly sunny, partly cloudy in Hyderabad last Sunday when I set out for Abids. As usual I stopped at Chikkadpally before proceeding to Abids. The first find of Sunday was a nice copy of ‘Islam’ by Karen Armstrong. I had first found her ‘The Spiral Staircase’, her memoir of her life as a nun while very young and leaving the convent sort of disillusioned. I also have read her ‘Twelve Ways to a Compassionate Life’ sometime back. I got ‘Islam’ for a hundred rupees. Afterwards I got into a bus to Koti and thence to Abids. 

I had seen a copy of a book of stories in Hindi by Vijay Dhan Dhetha with a seller near the GPO but the seller had asked for a price I wasn’t willing to pay and he wasn’t willing to reduce the price, asking me to quote another amount. I was in no mood to play games with him and so left without buying it. 

I was lucky to spot a nice small sized book with ‘Cultural Action for Freedom’ by Paulo Friere with an attractive cover that drew my eye to it. I had earlier found and also read ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by Paulo Friere, and so this new title I wanted to read also. The seller asked for just thirty rupees for it that I was glad to pay. 

Somehow I feel my English isn’t so good and that I have to improve it by whatever means. So I buy books on grammar, usage, style and so on whenever I spot such titles. Last Sunday I came across a nice copy of ‘English Blues’ published by New Indian Express that I seem to have bought long time back and since I wasn’t sure about it I picked it up for thirty rupees. 

I had been seeing this copy of ‘The Moon by Whale Light’ by Diane Ackerman with a seller since the past few Sundays and did not feel like buying it though I love to read writing on nature. When I read in the inside page that Diane Ackerman was a staff writer at The New Yorker and had also written a few best-selling books about nature I bought it. 

A long back I had read about Krupabai Sattianadhan, a Brahmin woman whose parents were among the first to be converted to Christianity sometime in the 1850s or so. I wanted to read about her but couldn’t find much anywhere. Last Sunday I spotted a copy of ‘Kamala: The Story of a Hindu Child-Wife’ by Krupabai Satthianadhan and bought it. 

More than a decade ago I picked up a copy of ‘Monkey Grip’ by Helen Garner after having seen it with the same seller for many weeks. I hadn’t heard of the title or Helen Garner so I hesitated though it was a Penguin book. But after I bought it and read it soon after ‘Monkey Grip’ became one of my favorite novels. Last Sunday I spotted another copy with the same cover and bought it right away. 

Arms loaded with six books and on the way home when I stopped at a seller and saw a copy of‘The Rinehart Reader’ by Jeff Rackham & Beverly J. Slaughter. This was a thick volume, one of those books that colleges in the United States recommend to their students to improve their reading and writing skills. I had bought a few such book in the past because they contain many good stories and essays by well-known writers, to illustrate the fundamentals of writing short stories and essays. In one such book I found a short story that I had been looking for everywhere. 

Then right next to it was a copy of ‘The World and Africa’ by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, a writer whose books I keep reading about on social media where people post the covers of his books. I had to buy it because it was my first du Bois title and also that it was about Africa, a place I never tire of reading about. These two titles cost me three hundred rupees!

The Sunday Haul (27-07-2025)

 

Yesterday this blog completed 18 years. This is the first post of the nineteenth year of this blog. 

After almost more than ten days of gloomy weather with cloudy skies and intermittent heavy rain it was a glorious morning on Sunday in Hyderabad with clear skies and the sun driving away all the black moods. Sunny and bright it may have been but the wind was blowing like the devil flipping the covers off the books. 

The first find was at Chikkadpally with the seller at the end the guy who is always reading one of his own books and doesn’t even look at who’s searching among his books. I found a copy of ‘Brothers in Zinc’ by Svetlana Alexeivich, a Penguin title. Many years ago, I had found a Svetlana Alexeivich title but somehow I did not buy it. So, finding this title was satisfying. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

The next find was at Abids, a copy of ‘Talisman’ by Tirumavalavan, another addition to the growing list of Dalit literature. Tirumaavalavan is the founder of VCK, a political party in Tamil Nadu. I bought this book for Rs.80. Someday I am going to read this book with all other titles by Dalit writers on casteism, and also those by others.