It started as usual last Sunday. I stepped out around ten in the morning for Abids and after breakfast of idli at Snehita I found a copy of 'Human Wrongs: Reflections on Western Global Dominance and its Impact Upon Human Rights' by Just World Trust. It was a collection of essays on various events in different parts of the world written by various people of which there were familiar names like Claude Alvares, Vandana Shiva, Ashis Nandy from India and the rest I did not know. This was with a seller at the RTC Crossroads.
Then got into the bus to Koti and from there another bus to Abids. With a seller behind GPO near Grand I spotted a copy of 'Solitude: A Return to the Self' by Anthony Storr.
Sometime in 2016 in an essay I read in The Guardian online there was a list of 'Top Ten Books for the Brokenhearted' and one of the titles in it was 'Solitude' by Anthony Storr. I did not know I had written down this list in a notebook that I accidentally happened to read only today. 'Solitude' is about how solitude is a necessary condition for creative people. Storr writes about how Edward Gibbon, Beethoven, Anne Sexton, Beatrice Potter and others expressed their creativity best in solitude. I got this title for a hundred rupees.
As someone who reads a lot and aspiring to write I know the power of words and so try to find new words and their meanings. I actually read dictionaries for fun so when I saw a copy of 'Words or My Private Babel' by Farrukh Dhondy I was intrigued. I read his column in a local newspaper.
Ever since I read about it I had been looking for 'The Complete Polysyllabic Spree' by Nick Hornby which I had read was about reading. I had wondered if I would be lucky enough to find it at all. Somehow last Sunday just when I was setting out for home I wandered into the lane near Hollywood shoes and spotted a nice copy of the book.
I am feeling anxious about the number of books I am buying at Abids every Sunday but cannot seem to put a stop to this buying spree.
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