The Sunday Haul (on 07-06-2015)

Three days after landing a great midweek haul at Best Books at Lakdikapul, I found three more books at Abids on Sunday. I found yet another Orient Paperbacks title with that sort of cover that they had sometime in the seventies. I am thinking of collecting these titles published in the sixties and seventies because there is something about these covers that’s appealing. The first book I found, the Orient Paperback title was a classic in Indian Writing in English. I had seen several copies of Raja Raj’s ‘The Serpent and the Rope’ but never could find a good enough copy to buy. Last Sunday I found a good copy of ‘The Serpent and the Rope’ by Raja Rao that had a quaint cover. Inside I saw that the print was in one of those fonts that suggest simplicity and elegance.

My second find was a title that I decided I would give to a friend. I found ‘The Penguin Book of Hymns’ edited by Ian Bradley that I thought would be an ideal gift for Daniel. After I took this home I saw that it had a hundred and fifty hymns including those I had only read about- Amazing Grace, and Lead Kindly Light. The book had a lengthy but interesting note about each Hymn- who wrote it, when, and such interesting details. I read that Lead Kindly Light was the second great hymn by John Henry Newman. It was interesting to read that Newman’s verses were a particular favorite of Queen Victoria and were read out to her as she lay dying in 1901. It gives one how deeply some verses/hymns/poems affect individuals. I will ask Daniel to let me keep the book for some time until I finish reading all the hymns.

The next find was a title by one of my favorite writers- Len Deighton. My collection of his titles has dwindled and so when I saw ‘Faith’ in a heap selling for only ten rupees I picked it up. I plan to rebuild my collection of Len Deighton titles, especially the trilogies- Game, Set, Match; Hook, Line, Sinker; and Faith, Hope, Charity. I see many Len Deighton titles at Abids all the time so it won’t be long before I have them all on my bookshelf.

Apart from these books, the really interesting finds were three volumes of some old Indian poetry magazines that I found at one place. I found ‘Indian Verse’ Vol 2, No. 3 of Summer 74 and Vol 3, No. 1 of Winter 1975. The third volume was Vol. 1 No. 1 of ‘Poetry’ edited by Niranjan Mohanty. In these three volumes were poems by some of the early poets in Indian writing in English such as Pritish Nandy, Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Shiv K. Kumar and many new names I haven’t heard before.

These three fragile volumes are perhaps reminders of how seriously poetry was taken in those times. I felt glad I found these books and these add to the collections of verse that I am unconsciously collecting these days.

A Midweek Haul

Sometime last week bored with the routine at the office I decided to take the day off and so stayed at home. I had some errands to run such as closing my bank account in United Bank of India and opening a new account in HDFC bank. I accomplished these tasks sooner than I thought and had half the day free with nothing to do. Whenever I have time on my hands I spend it in bookstores. I went to the Best Books branch in Lakdikapul after lunch and spent a couple of hours scouring the bookshelves for titles to buy.

To me, or to any true bibliophile, for that matter, there is nothing more exciting than discovering a good book by an author one hasn’t heard of before. Even after nearly twenty years of some serious book hunting during which time I must have bought a couple of thousand of books I have realized there are some Indian writers who wrote in the sixties and seventies that I don’t know about. It was only a while ago that I learnt about Arun Joshi from a newspaper article by Aditya Sudarshan. There are many more writers, who were, incidentally, published by Orient Paperbacks. I discovered one such writer.

When I saw ‘I Come As A Thief’ by Manoje Basu I picked it up. It had that look on the cover I have come to associate with Orient Paperbacks. On the cover it said it was a Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel. When I read the author’s note I discovered that it was an English translation of his Bengali novel ‘Nishikutumba.’ It was serialized in the Bengali weekly ‘Desh’ and had caused quite an uproar. I was glad I found this book.

I thought I was lucky when I found ‘I Come As A Thief’ by Manoje Basu but more was waiting for me. Underneath this title stacked in a heap I found a book I had been looking for since a long time. Though I had picked up a few copies of ‘The Apprentice’ by Arun Joshi my heart was set on finding the first edition. Last week I found it and was I thrilled to lay my hands on the beautiful copy. ‘The Apprentice’ by Arun Joshi was published by Orient Paperback in 1974. The typesetting was so quaint I was amused. The copy I found was in good condition and seemed to have belonged to one ‘Madana Mohan Mahapatra’ of Jeypore, Odisha whose stamp was on one of the pages.

Sometime back I had randomly picked up ‘The Wycherly Woman’ by Ross Macdonald in this same store. After I finished reading it I resolved to read all the titles by this writer. Back then I did not know that he was one of the ‘Holy Trinity of American Writers’ along with Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. So when I came across three more titles by him I just grabbed them. I found ‘The Galton Case,’ ‘Trouble Follows Me,’ and ‘The Goodbye Look’ all by Ross Macdonald. I was more than thrilled to find these three books and am looking forward to start reading them.

However, this midweek haul set me back by four hundred rupees. I did not mind it since I had found some rare copies of books by two virtually unknown ( to me) Indian writers. With this haul of five books the total haul during this year goes up to eighty one books.

The Sunday Haul (on 31-05-2015)

Last Sunday it was the final Sunday of May. Another week and the monsoon would begin and hopefully, would bring rain that everyone seemed to be eagerly waiting for. I did not mind if the rain disrupted my visits to Abids on Sunday because I think the farmers need rain more than I need books. So last Sunday it was hot but not as hot as it had been the previous Sundays. Since I didn’t have to go to the office or didn’t have anything to do that kept me away from Abids I browsed to my heart’s content.

The first title I found was ‘Mist’ and ‘Creature of Darkness’ by MT Vasudevan Nair, another favorite writer of mine. It was a slim volume and in quite good condition. I hope to read the two novellas in this title sometime soon. Somehow I want to read more of Indian writing and finding this title is making me restless to read this famed writer at the earliest. By the way, I got this book for only twenty rupees.

Actually, the first find was a book I found in a heap with a seller in the lane where I park my bike. So far I have stayed clear of books for Eric Ambler and haven’t read anything by him. However, I have his autobiography ‘Here Lies Eric Ambler’ at home but I haven’t read it yet. I found ‘Cause for Alarm’ on the cover of which was Graham Greene’s statement about Ambler being ‘our greatest thriller writer.’ This praise was enough to make me buy this title. I got this book too for twenty rupees.

Later, in another heap of books selling for thirty rupees, I saw a book in a condition that would have put me off buying it. There were termite holes on the hardcover that ran all the way to the last page on the back. Normally I don’t even look at such copies but this was a different book. It was ‘Bright Book of Life; American Novelists and Storyteller from Hemingway to Mailer’ by Alfred Kazin. I don’t let go of books like this so despite its condition I bought this book hoping to know more how Hemingway, Mailer, and other American novelists worked on their craft. By the way, the title is taken from an interesting observation DH Lawrence made in an essay (?) titled ‘Why the Novel Matters’ and the observation is this:
‘And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.
The novel is the one bright book of life.’

The final find was another interesting book. I found ‘Childhood Days’ by Satyajit Ray, the great man himself. Obviously it was a memoir and I was delighted to find this Penguin title in good condition. The seller asked for forty rupees for it which I paid without bargaining because I don’t come across these kinds of titles too often.

The Sunday Haul (on 24-05-2015)

In the short, hot hour that I was at Abids last Sunday I managed to find two books. A team from the Central Government was visiting the state so I had to go to the office and make arrangements. Another reason was that it was terribly hot because of the heat wave and I couldn’t be out in the sun for more than an hour. So I spent some time in the café sipping chai and talking about books and later began the hunt that did not last more than an hour.

The first title I spotted was ‘Candy is Dandy’ by Ogden Nash that I got for just fifty rupees. It was in a pretty good condition and had hundreds of Ogden Nash’s comic verse. Some of the funniest ones are here:

The Eel
I don’t mind eels
Except as meals
And the way they feels.

The Fly
God in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.

The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk
One end is moo, the other, milk.

The Ant
The ant has made himself illustrious
Through constant industry industrious
So what?
Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?

Another find was a collection of short stories titled ‘A Dove of the East’ by Mark Helprin that I found in a heap of books selling for thirty rupees. This collection has the following twenty stories: A Jew of Persia; Because of the Waters of the Flood; Ruin; First Russian Summer; Katrina, Katrin; Shooting the Bar-1004; Lightning North of Paris; Mountain Dancing in Truchas; Leaving the Church; Katherine Comes to Yellow Sky; Elisha Hospital; End of the Line; The Legitimacy of Medium Beauty; The Home Front; Willis Avenue; Elizabeth Ridinoure; The Silver Bracelet; On the ‘White Girl’ by James Whistler; Back Bay Conservatory; and A Dove of the East.

The Sunday Haul (on 17-05-2015)

Since the past few weeks I’ve been seeing a nice copy of ‘All the King’s Men’ by Robert Pen Warren at Abids but have been hesitating to buy it. I was in two minds about it. One reason, a strong one, to buy it was that it was a brand new copy, and plus it was with a seller who would give it to me at any price I asked. The reason that put me off buying it was that it was quite a thick tome, somewhere around 660 pages of dense print that would take me weeks to finish if I ever decide to read it. All these days I have been able to resist the impulse to buy it but last Sunday I succumbed. I bought it for only fifty rupees which seemed to me to be peanuts for the beautiful copy I got.

But it did not take me long to decide on the second find. In a heap of books selling for only twenty rupees I saw Anita Desai’s ‘Bye Bye Blackbird.’ It was a nice copy which had all pages intact and unblemished. I did not need any reason not to pick it up.

My last find wasn’t at Abids but at Chikkadpally. I found ‘the Jaguar’s Smile’ by Salman Rushdie. This was a travelogue (about his journey to Nicaragua) something which I cannot resist buying and so I bought it paying only thirty rupees for it. It said ‘First Publication’ on the cover and when I looked inside I saw that it was published in 1987. I wonder if First Publication is the same as First Edition.
Another curious coincidence of the day’s haul was that ‘All the King’s Men’ had won the Pulitzer Prize and ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ had won the Sahitya Akademi Award.

The Sunday Haul (on 10-05-2015)

I wouldn’t mind if I was told Abids would be the only place where I would be allowed to buy books. At Abids there are so many books that every Sunday I keep finding new writers. Last Sunday I came across a book by another writer whose name I faintly remember reading somewhere. The writer was Andre Brink and the book was ‘Imaginings of Sand’ that I got for fifty rupees.

The next find was not a book but the July-September 2014 issue of IQ (The Indian Quarterly) a classy magazine brought by the Mahindras that I hadn’t seen before. It was a thick, large magazine with high quality, glossy paper. Even the articles and photographs appeared high quality. I read a fantastic poem about poets titled ‘Bardic Stuff’ by Manohar Shetty. The essay by Amitava Kumar on writer Akhil Sharma (Family Life) was very good. I wonder why on earth this magazine is not available in Hyderabad. By the way, its price is 200 but I got it for thirty rupees at Abids. I wish I could find an older issue that was on writing.

Another find was ‘Show Me A Hero’ by Aditya Sudarshan. Aditya Sudarshan is a young writer who has attracted a lot of attention with his elegant writing. I’ve read two of the three novels he has written so far- The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi’ which is his latest novel and ‘A Nice Quiet Holiday’ which is his first novel. I had been looking for his second novel and finally I found it at Abids last Sunday. Incidentally, it was an article by Aditya Sudarshan in The Hindu’s “The Literary Review’ that I learnt about Arun Joshi and his novels.

On the way home, I stopped at the seller near RTC Cross Roads. The building at the corner was being demolished to make way for the Metro but the seller displayed his books amidst the rubble. I found a decent copy of ‘Aspects of the Novel’ by EM Forster. I already have two copies of this book at home but this copy looked better than the ones I had. Moreover, it was in a twenty-rupee heap so I picked it up without a second thought.

The Sunday Haul (on 08-05-2015)

Being in Hyderabad, in May, is like being in hell. Being outdoors, of course, is actually hell. I am lucky mine is a desk job which means I am never outdoors during the day. My job isn’t anything that requires me to be outdoors on working days. It would take a lot to persuade me to step out of the office during the day in the summer.

However, on Sundays, nothing can prevent me from going out in the hot sun. I actually look forward to step outdoors even if the temperature is close to 40 degrees. The thing is Sundays don’t feel the same to me if I do not go to Abids and look for books on the pavements. I had picked up close to fifteen books on my recent visits to Bengaluru and Goa and thought I would take it easy at Abids this Sunday. But when there are good titles lying around, it is impossible to resist buying them so I ended up buying just one book at Abids last Sunday.

Sometimes I pick up books based on the names of the authors alone. One such author whose name I found musical and unusual was Lisa St Aubin de Teran. I had picked up her ‘The Slow Train to Milan’ sometime last year or so. Though I haven’t read this first book of de Teran I picked up I read ‘Keepers of the House’ that I found at Abids quite recently. She is a wonderful writer and when I found ‘Memory Maps’ last Sunday at Abids I had to pick it up. It was a memoir, a genre I do not miss buying especially if they are by writers I like. I got the book for fifty rupees.

The Haul at Goa

Last Thursday until I read the papers in the evening I did not realize it was World Book Day. Normally reading the papers is the first thing I do in the morning like many others. But if you are holidaying in Goa then it becomes the last thing one does before going to bed. I realized it was quite a coincidence that earlier in the day I had picked up eight books in the second hand sections of two of Goa’s bookstores. Adding another two titles that I picked up in another store the next day the total haul of books I made at Goa was a jaw-dropping and wallet-emptying ten books. It was the highlight of my four day Goa trip bringing back two titles of poetry, three titles of fiction, three non-fiction titles, one short story collection and one travel title.

On my last trip to Goa sometime in 2013, I had managed to find a couple of second hand books at Broadway located in Candolim where we had stayed. On this trip too we were in Candolim so Broadway was my first target. I went straight to the second hand books section where the walls were lined with shelves crammed with hundreds of titles. There were shelves with books for 100 rupees and some shelves with books for fifty rupees. Without wasting time I began with the 100 rupee shelves. I scanned the rows and rows of titles eagerly expecting to find something interesting. My first find was ‘Love and Summer’ by William Trevor. I do not remember where I first read about William Trevor but after I read his ‘Felicia’s Journey’ that I found somewhere I realized he was a writer one wouldn’t want to miss reading.

The next find was ‘Where I Was From’ by Joan Didion about whom I do not have to say anything more other than that it would be a dumb guy who wouldn’t pick a Didion title after reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem, White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking etc all of which I have and read a few times already. I want to begin reading ‘Where I Was From’ as soon as I find the time. That this title was in the hundred rupee shelf came as a pleasant surprise.

In another hundred rupee shelf I saw ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ by Friedrich Nietzsche which was a Penguin title. I took a long time to decide whether to buy it or not. I have read titles in all genres-poetry, crime fiction, autobiography, even self-help, writing, but I haven’t had the courage to pick up a title of Philosophy. I am not someone with enough brains to grasp what all these philosophers have to say about life, death, suffering, and such depressing subjects. However, I thought it was a title I wouldn’t find anywhere again and after resolving to read this book one page a day I bought it.

I thought I’d find at least a couple of titles in the fifty rupee shelves but unfortunately I was able to find only one title good enough to buy. When I saw the title of the next book I found I felt one book was enough. It was another William Trevor title, this time a collection of short stories. It was ‘The News from Ireland’ which has the following twelve stories: The News from Ireland, On the Zattere, Lunch in Winter, The Property of Colette Nervi, Running Away, Cocktails at Doney’s, Bodily Secrets, Virgins, Her Mother’s Daughter, Music, Two More Gallants, The Wedding in the Garden. Incidentally, on my recent trip which was to Bengaluru, I had found ‘Elizabeth Alone’ by William Trevor. With these two Trevor titles that I found at Goa my collection of William Trevor titles goes up to six.

Feeling very upbeat about this haul of four books at Broadway I was able to find out where Literati was located. Before coming to Goa I had googled for second hand bookstores in Goa and learnt about Broadway, and Literati in Candolim, and Lotus Eaters in Anjuna. Literati was quite close by. I was able to locate it easily enough and after checking out the second hand book collection which was displayed in a small room I decided to return and look closely after having lunch. It is never a good idea to take along someone who doesn’t read books to a bookstore especially if you are on a vacation. So I had lunch with my friend, dropped him in the hotel to sleep off the heavy lunch, and returned to Literati.

‘Literati’ is part of a quaint house in the middle of a vast compound filled with greenery. It was unlike any bookstore that I had visited so far. I did not bother much about the new books section that filled an entire room that was quite large with sofas laid around a table in the middle. One could perhaps sit on the sofas and browse the books one intends to buy. It had the atmosphere of a cozy, homely bookstore and I loved it the moment I stepped inside.

In an adjoining room that was smaller there were scores of books, small and large, almost brand new to tattered volumes that looked like they were printed sometime in the 1900s. At first glance it looked like I wouldn’t find anything interesting. As usual, I was wrong. I do not know why but of late I have learnt not to let go of any collection of poetry I come across, especially if it is by an Indian poet belonging to an earlier generation. Limited though my knowledge is I think the 60’s and 70’s was the time when the best poetry was created in the country by the likes of Jayanta Mahapatra, Nissim Ezekiel, Adil Jussawala, Gieve Patel, and others. So when I saw this unusually sized copy of ‘The False Start’ by Jayanta Mahapatra I knew I had to buy it at any price. I was shocked when I learnt its price but more about the prices later.

The cover of ‘The False Start’ looked old, faded, with light stains on it, and the inside pages too had faded to a creamy yellow and if one was dumb then he would have found it appealing and tossed it aside. However, I decided to buy it especially after I read one of the poems titled ‘Poem for Angela Elston’ that was haunting. In all this collection had more than forty poems. To my luck, immediately below this volume was another collection of poems with a striking cover with a sun on it. This turned out to be ‘A Summer of Tigers’ by Keki N Daruwalla.

After I found these two collections of poetry I realized that this was a treasure trove that would yield more gems if I looked carefully. Sure enough I found another little gem. Even before I could look at the bright red cover I knew it was ‘Ex-Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader’ by Anne Fadiman. I knew it because I have a copy at home that occupies the pride of place on a shelf that not many get to see because the bookshelf in my bedroom. I had found this copy at Best Books in Hyderabad, a few years ago for just seventy five rupees. This find created an unusual excitement in me and I scanned the books eagerly like a greedy person looking for treasure. I spotted ‘Venice’ by Jan Morris, and added it to my pile of books that I managed to find at Literati.

On the wall was pasted a paper which was a sort of notice that said that all paperbacks in the second hand book section were uniformly priced at fifty rupees and all hardcovers were priced at 150 rupees. It meant that I had to pay only fifty rupees for the Anne Fadiman and Jan Morris title. It was a bargain. When it came to the Keki Daruwalla title which was a hardback the nice girl at the counter told the guy doing the billing to bring down the price to 100 first and then to seventy five. I was surprised and I hadn’t even told them I was from Hyderabad. When they said the Jayanta Mahapatra was mine for only ten rupees I realized why the Goans were such wonderful people. I do not think one could find ‘The False Start’ by Jayanta Mahapatra who is one of the greatest names in Indian English poetry, anywhere which makes it a rare book. I was so pleased with this find and the price at which I got all four books that I nominate ‘Literati’ in Goa as one of the best bookstores in the country. However, I learnt that The Lotus Eaters at Anjuna was supposed to have closed down so I did not bother to check it out.

Later in the evening I dropped in at ‘The Gift House’ which had a couple of bookshelves of used books. I found Rose Tremain’s ‘The Swimming Pool Season’ and Jonathan Coe’s ‘The Rain Before It Falls’ both which I got for hundred rupees each. Adding these two titles the total haul I made at Goa was a jaw dropping ten books. It was the highlight of my four-day trip to Goa.

The Sunday Haul (on 19-04-2015)

The Sunday before last Sunday though I was in Bengaluru I wished I were in Hyderabad since I would be missing my Sunday visit to Abids. Even if I was in Hyderabad I would not have been able to go to Abids since, I learnt later, the heavens poured from the sky all Sunday in Hyderabad. I was glad I had picked up the five books at Bookworm and Blossoms the previous evening.

However last Sunday I could go to Abids. It has become such a habit that I do not feel the same if I haven’t been to Abids. The last time I was in Abids I noticed that there was fresh stock and I could find some good titles including William Saroyan’s ‘The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’ that I got dirt cheap. This Sunday I found another collection of short stories by Saroyan. I found ‘Little Children’ that I got for thirty rupees. This collection has seventeen stories: Laughing Sam; The Sunday Zeppelin; Corduroy Pants; The Coldest Winter Since 1854; O Higher Accountancy, O Traffic Management; The Only Guy in Town; The First Day of School; The Man Who Got Fat; Around the World with General Grant; The Messenger; Many Miles Per Hour; The World’s Champion Elevator Operator; The Mexicans
This is the fourth William Saroyan title I have with me. A long ago I had found ‘Here Comes There Goes, You Know Who’ and sometime recently I found ‘My Name is Aram’ that I haven’t got around to reading. However I read one story (Laughing Sam) in the collection I found on Sunday. I plan to read the rest of the stories one a day.

I have about four or five books related to Hollywood. I have Pauline Kael’s ‘I Lost It All at the Movies,’ Syd Field’s ‘Going to the Movies,’ Manny Farber’s ‘Negative Space,’ and Barry Norman’s ‘And Why Not’ The next find was another Hollywood book that I found in a heap of almost brand new books selling for fifty rupees. I picked up Larry McMurtry’s ‘Film Flam’ which is a collection of essays on Hollywood. I noticed that many of the twenty one essays in it were related to screenwriting that somehow I like to read about.

I found in another heap of books selling for twenty rupees I found Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ that I bought. Srikant took it saying he wanted to read it first so I let him.

2015 Trips- Trip No. 1- In and Out of Bengaluru in 48 Hours

After a very long time the travel stars in my life shone briefly enough to let me go on a short trip to Bengaluru. My last visit to Bengaluru was sometime in 2013 I guess. Though Bengaluru has many charms the chief attraction it holds for me is the bunch of bookstores on MG Road where I have found many good titles on earlier visits. On my previous visit to Bengaluru I spent hours browsing in Blossoms, Select, Bookworms, and another store whose name I cannot recollect now and ended up buying about a dozen titles. It is enough to make me wish, almost pray, for a chance to visit the city. Last week this wish was granted when Hari asked me if I would come along in his car to Bengaluru.

After more than an eight-hour drive, driving at a sedate 80 kmph which Hari maintained, and with breaks for breakfast and lunch, we reached Bengaluru at around four in the afternoon. The weather was warm and sunny enough to put anyone in a good mood. However just before we reached Bengaluru I got some news on the phone that took all the excitement out of the trip. Later it improved a little after I went straight to the bookstores on MG Road and hauled in five books.

After picking up a book at Bookworm and before visiting Blossoms I sat in the India Coffee House and had a coffee and leafed through ‘Hunters in the Snow’. The coffee was nice but it did nothing to lift my moods that were down after I got the phone call. After spending a few minutes in Blossoms I noticed it was raining outside which further dampened my moods. I looked at the thousands of titles on the shelves with a desultoriness I do not usually experience in a bookstore. Even in that dark mood I managed to find a few titles worth buying. With the rain showing no sign of abating I realized that I wouldn’t be able to visit Select and the other store after I was finished at Blossoms. I decided to spend all the time at Blossoms and increase my chances of finding more books and so stayed put there. I found a few more titles and decided I had enough.

Clutching the precious haul of five books I stood near MG Road metro station waiting for Hari. Afterwards we waited in vain for a pre-paid autorickshaw. After a long wait we got one and got back to the hotel. It was still raining and it did not look like it would stop until the morning.

However it did not rain the next day. The next day, a Sunday, we decided to have ‘benne dosa’ at MTR which wasn’t very far from where we were staying. After a short wait outside, we were led to a table which we had to share with four other men. The waiter took a long time to appear. We had to sit for an even longer period for him to bring our order. There was no ‘benne dosa’ waiting for us at MTR. For the first time in my life I ate idli with the ‘saag’ that is normally eaten with puris. At least, it is eaten that way in Hyderabad. We were told that all the sambar in MTR is finished by eight in the morning and anyone who comes after eight is condemned to eat his idli/dosa/wada without sambar. So we had the dosa we ordered without the sambar which is like eating biryani without the salan. However we ended up eating ‘Chandrahaara’ which is a sweet dish that we ordered after the voluble Marwari guys sharing our table told us that it was available only on Sundays. It was wonderful and though we couldn’t have ‘benne dosa’ I was glad to have tasted ‘Chandrahaara’ which I plan to have on my next visit to Bengaluru.

On the way back we stopped at Anantapur for lunch. Luckily, we could locate the hotel (Sanman) where I had eaten lunch on a previous official trip sometime in 2006. We had ‘olige’ and jowar roti which are the local specialties. The lunch at Anantapur made the detour from the National highway worth it. After a short distance we came upon a crowd of onlookers, people from cars, trucks etc who got down to take a look at something on the road. It wasn’t difficult to guess that there had been an accident that had taken place only a few minutes earlier. From the expressions on the faces of the people returning back to their cars etc I knew it was a fatal accident and that someone had died. As we drove past slowly I saw the body of a man lying on the ground, a pool of blood under his head. Beside the body was an overturned SUV and a short distance away we saw another badly dented car with the inmates checking under the hood. The sight of the body put us in a grim mood and we drove quite slowly for a while.
Later we got caught in high winds that rocked the car a little so we took shelter in a Reliance outlet for a while until the wind had died down. Later we saw the hail, marble sized pieces of ice that lined the road. I wondered if the body that we saw had been covered or was still lying in the rain. But it did not deter me from doing something risky. Hari took a break from the driving and I took over. Despite being told not to go over 80 kmph I pushed the Hyundai i10 beyond 100 kmph. There were too many cars overtaking us and there was one whose driver gave me a contemptuous glance. I wanted to overtake him at least once and that made me go too fast. But just when I was thinking that I was doing great I heard a rattling sound coming from the front and felt the car wobble a bit. Luckily I was able to bring the car to a stop. The front right tyre was shredded to strips. The tyre had burst on the newly laid BT road. When I touched the tyre it was very hot.

We managed to change the tyre without getting swiped by the trucks and cars that sped past at great speed. We made it to Hyderabad in time to have dinner at home. It was such a brief trip I wondered the next morning if I had really made it to Bengaluru. But the sight of the book haul, the dull ache in the arms, and the memory of the taste of the ‘Chandrahaara’ at MTR that seemed to linger in the mouth confirmed that it was a real trip.