Last Sunday it showed that summer was round the corner as it was warmer than usual in the morning. So I set out for Abids with a water bottle in my bag and a cap on my head. I was not aware that I was going to make some wonderful finds including a title by an author I was searching for since a long time. As usual I started with the seller at Chikkadpally. The first find was a beautiful copy of 'Nation of Fools' by Balraj Khanna that had a stunning cover with a painting on it. I already have a copy of this very funny book that I found a long time ago but it had a different cover. Either way I wouldn't have not bought this beautiful book that I got for eighty rupees.
Next stop was Abids but before commencing my browsing I sat in Grand Hotel and had a couple of crisp chota samosas and a cup of Irani chai and marveled at my luck finding the copy of 'Nation of Fools' by Balraj Khanna.
A few minutes later I found a hardcover copy of 'The Case for Reason vol -2: A Scientific Enquiry Into Belief' by Narendra Dabholkar that appeared very interesting. Narendra Dabholkar was shot to death by assailants who found his views on religion hard to digest and so they thought they could stop spreading his views by killing him. What a tragedy it was!
Sometimes it pays to be patient. A long time back I read an article in which Stephen King said that he loved David Goodis' books and though I found many books by authors he had written about I was frustrated that I couldn't find books by David Goodis anywhere. I looked for his novels in the second-hand bookstores in Bengaluru and also here in Hyderabad. I thought I might find them in Kolkata in the stores in College Street. But I was unsuccessful. I searched online but the price was too high. I wanted to find a title by Goodis on my own at Abids and knew it would turn up one day. That day was last Sunday when at last I spotted the name 'David Goodis' on a cover that made my pulse race.
I saw a copy of 'The Burglar' by David Goodis with a seller where I found quite a few good titles in the past. I picked it up, my hands shaking with an unusual excitement, to look at it closely. It was indeed David Goodis on the cover and the book had all its pages intact except there was a small tear on the top of the front cover. But it did not matter as I felt I had found a rare gem. I got it for just seventy rupees whereas online the price was around thousand rupees.
With a heart full of joy at finding something I had been searching for long I thought of going home but I continued with the browsing and came to a seller where I found a copy of 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' by Gertrude Stein. While paying I asked the youngster where his dad was since I had not seen him for the past couple of months. When he said his father had died three months back I felt a sense of loss. The boy did not show any sign of sorrow and told me in a casual way that his father died of a heart attack. But I could see that he was struggling not to cry. He told me he was his father's only child, and was in 10+2 and said he would either do a degree or engineering if he got a good rank. I felt very bad for not asking about his father when I did not see him for many weeks. Last I had seen him was at the Hyderabad Book Fair in December.
The last title I found was a copy of 'Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1933-1945' Saul Friedlander.
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