The Sunday Haul (on 21-09-2025)

Just recovering from a severe sinus infection and feeling rather weak I had decided to skip Abids and rest at home but I changed my plans after Hari called to say he was coming to Abids. It was a bright and sunny morning last Sunday in Hyderabad, and the forecast for the next week was that it would rain during the weekend from 25^th due to a Deep Depression since it looked likely that it would rain the coming Sunday also. So I decided to make hay while the sun shines and started off by skipping the sellers at Chikkadpally and heading straight to Abids where my friend was waiting. 

On the way to meet him I saw a copy of a book with such an attractive cover that I instantly picked it up. It was a beautiful copy of ‘Ancient Tales & Folklore of China’ by Edward T.C. Werner, a subject that I am very interested in so I bought it right away. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

The next find was a copy of ‘When We Were Orphans’ by Kazuo Ishiguro with a small portion of the cover and the pages below torn off but that did not deter me from buying it. It was a faber & faber first edition, and I had also not read this Ishiguro novel so in it went into the haul. 

Later I sat with Hari in the Bench café in one of the side lanes and talked over omelette, bun maska, and ginger chai for a long time.  

The Sunday Haul (on 14-09-2025)

 

It was quite a surprise that it did not rain almost all day last Sunday as there was a forecast of heavy rain for a couple of days, and also since it had rained quite heavily the day before, on Saturday evening. I was pleased that the weather gods were kind as I set out for Abids. As usual I stopped at Chikkadpally and found three good titles. 

The first find of the day was a nice copy of ‘Japan: The Story of a Nation’ by Edwin O. Reischauer with an attractive golden yellow cover with a painting of flowers. The size was also different as it was narrower than the usual sizes that books come in. 

With another seller down the road I found two wonderful titles I did not expect to find. Sometime back I had found a copy of ‘In Search of Lost Time Volume I: Swann’s Way’ and realized that it would be impossible to find the other volumes. But miracles happen and last Sunday I found copies of Volumes I and II of ‘In Search of Lost Time’ by Marcel Proust- ‘In Search of Lost Time Volume II: Within a Budding Grove’ and ‘In Search of Lost Time Volume III: The Guermantes Way’. I was delighted that I found these wonderful titles and at the same time felt alarmed that put together they run into hundreds of pages that I would never find the time to read unless I put aside everything and read these. 

Another title I picked up was a copy of ‘Looking for Maya’ by Atima Srivastava that had an attractive cover, and also because I felt I had read the author’s name somewhere long time back. I picked up as it was a Penguin title. This book was a British Library discardd.dI got it for fifty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 07-09-2025)

 

Last Sunday it was the day after the Ganesh procession, and the trucks with long trailers that had carried the idols for immersion were returning with the revellers playing loud music. Then there was all the trash, and stuff left in the aftermath of the procession. As I expected all the sellers hadn’t turned out so I could get over my browsing in under an hour.

But before I got to Abids I made the usual stop at the sellers in Chikkadpally. I was drawn to an attractive cover on a book with the title ‘The Cousins’ by Prema Raghunath on it. I hadn’t heard of the title and also the author seemed unknown but I bought the book anyway after I noticed that it was published by Zubaan. 

The next find was at another seller in Chikkadpally who had many good titles that I was tempted to buy but instead ended up buying a copy of ‘Penguin Island’ by Anatole France. I had only read about Anatole France but this was the first book by him that I found. 

At Abids where I reached about half hour later, I found a copy of ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ by Raymond Carver. It was in a heap of Rs.50 books, and I hesitated for a few moments because I already had a copy of it. But in the end, I picked it up. 

The last title in Sunday’s haul wasn’t something I picked up off the pavement. A couple of weeks ago I had met Anil Battula, a bibliophile who is so passionate about books and literature that he is said to have a vast collection of Telugu books, some going back to the 1930s or earlier than that. Last Sunday, I met him again and while talking with him over chai at the Star of India café in Abids along with another bibliophile he showed me a copy of a classic titled that he had got translated into Telugu and published it. It was a copy of ‘Cycle Donga’ originally ‘Bicycle Thief’ by Cesare Zavattini (?) that was made into a movie by Vittorio de Sica, and that became a classic.  It had a beautiful cover and I took it from him. I don’t know much Telugu so I do not know when I will finally get around to reading it. 

The Sunday Haul (on 31-08-2025)

 

It was cloudy last Sunday in Hyderabad though it didn’t rain while I was in Abids until afternoon. Once again, I had a haul of seven books though I had planned to buy just one or two books. 

The first find was a title that first felt like it was a collection of stories for children but ‘Monkey Times and Other Stories’ by Thangam is a collection of real-life experiences, interesting ones, of Thangam, who had written down these in a notebook. I was surprised to read that she had lived in Hyderabad when the book was published in 2003, when she was eighty years old. I got this hardcover title for only thirty rupees.

I had someone, a follower on X, with me so while I showed her a book she might be interested in, I noticed a title I was interested in. It was a copy of ‘Ranjit Singh: Maharaja of the Punjab’ by Khushwant Singh that had a very attractive cover with the portrait of Ranjit Singh. It is a biography that I hope to read sometime soon. 

The next find was another hardcover title- ‘Hyderabad Hazir Hai’ by Vanaja Banagiri, a collection of essays on various aspects of Hyderabad by some notable Hyderabadis like Narendra Luther, Vijay Marur, Mohammad Ali Baig, G. Rajaraman and others with their essays on various aspects of Hyderabad such as its cuisine, art, and even real estate! But the essay I liked most was ‘All Things Hyderabadi’ by Vanaja Banagiri, the editor of the collection, because she covered everything in it- the history, the lingo, clothing, religion, hospitality, architecture etc. 

In a Rs. 50 lot I spotted a copy of ‘Travelling In, Travelling Out’ by Namita Gokhale, a collection of travel essays by Aakar Patel, Jerry Pinto, Navtej Sarna, Urvashi Butalia, and others about their travels. 

Sometime last week I had received a copy of ‘Bombay- A Private View’ by Vinod Mehta that he seemed to have self-published when he was very young. There is a photograph of him on the back cover, complete with long hair and dark glasses. Last Sunday when I saw a nice copy of ‘Lucknow Boy’ by Vinod Mehta, his memoir of his days as a journalist and editor of ‘Outlook’ I picked it up though I already have a copy that I read long time back.

This was one title that has been eluding me since a long time, ever since I read about it. The seller called me and asked me to look in a bag he had. It was filled with some good titles including ‘Churchill’s Secret War’ by Madhusree Mukerjee, one of the two titles I picked out of the bag. I have a copy of ‘The Land of the Naked People’ by the same author that I had first read, only half of it, when I was in Port Blair sometime in 2006. A friend had given it to me and I had to give it back to him after reading only half the book as he was leaving Port Blair. 

The other title that I took out of the bag was a nice copy of ‘An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan’ by Jason Eliot. As the title says it is a travel book. I already have another title by Jason Eliot that I had bought sometime back. I have yet to read it.