The Sunday and Other Haul (22/4/2018)

NTR Stadium in Hyderabad is the venue for many events such as exhibitions, fairs etc that take place there regularly. Since the past couple of years it is also been the venue for the Hyderabad Book Fair. It also happens to be quite close to where I live and also on the route to my office. Whenever there is an event there I get to know it beforehand somehow. A seller at the Abids book bazar told me about the Hyderabad Fest that was to be held from April 13-22 and he added that there would be many stalls selling books. Sometime last week I found the time to drop in at the Hyderabad Fest twice. There were around 30-40 stalls selling second hand books mostly. However despite so many stalls I ended up finding only two good books and while buying one of them got to experience first-hand a common phenomenon in the book trade.

It was on Thursday I went to the Hyd Fest for the first time. I picked up a nice and old copy of ‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway that had an attractive cover. I found it at one of the stalls put up by an Abids second hand bookseller. I got the book for fifty rupees. At another stall, it was one by a Bombay based second hand book-seller; I saw a beautiful copy of ‘The Sheltering Sky’ by Paul Bowles. The seller wanted a hundred and fifty rupees for it which I thought was too much. I tried to bargain but he did not budge so I left without buying it and regretted it all of Thursday night and until Friday evening when I decided to drop in at NTR stadium and pick it up.

When I looked around for the book I was not able to locate it for some time but ultimately found it in a corner. I looked around for the seller but instead another Abids seller who had the adjacent stall came over. I was a bit shocked when he told me he had bought the entire stock in the Bombay based seller’s stall and asked for two hundred rupees for the same book that I could have bought for a hundred and fifty rupees the previous day if I had any sense. I tried to bargain but the new seller told me he couldn’t afford to sell it at the price I could have bought it the previous day. It was too good a book to miss so I paid the two hundred rupees and walked out with the book wiser with the experience.

On Sunday at Abids I found a nice copy of Vimla Patil’s ‘Entertaining Indian Style’ that had a very beautiful cover. I got this recipe book for forty rupees and this was the only book I found at Abids.

The Sunday Haul (on 15-4-2018)

Sometime last month I had finished reading ‘The Book Hunters of Katpadi’ by Pradeep Sebastian that was in the library at the Institute where I am currently posted. One of the main characters in it mentions a list of Indian titles published by Jaico, Hind Pocket books in the forties- sixties that she is searching for relentlessly. I did not recollect the titles when I stumbled across a handful of Indian titles by Hind Pocket books at Chikkadpally last Sunday on the way back from Abids. I had never before seen the titles in such good condition. I had come across umpteen copies of ‘The Coffer Dams’ by Kamala Markandaya, and also ‘The Lalru Murders’ by Mangat Rai but hadn’t thought of buying them because of their condition. But last Sunday I found very good copies of ‘The Coffer Dams’ by Kamala Markandaya, ‘The Lalru Murders’ by EN Mangat Rai, and also a beautiful copy of ‘The Spy in Amber’ by Manohar Malgonkar that were published in the sixties. They were almost like new and I was surprised they were still in such a good condition even after nearly sixty years. I got these three titles for thirty each and a copy of ‘The Serpent and the Rope’ by Raja Rao, another old edition but not in such a good condition, for forty rupees.

Yesterday I looked up ‘The Book Hunters of Katpadi’ by Pradeep Sebastian but was disappointed that not one title I had found at Abids was mentioned. However, I was terribly pleased that I had the sense to pick up these beautiful copies. I am not really interested them in selling them but I want to retain them with myself and show them off. Quite surprisingly, while ‘The Serpent and the Rope’ by Raja Rao is a 1968 edition, ‘The Lalru Murders’ by E.N. Mangat Rai is a 1973 edition while the copies of ‘Spy in Amber’ by Manohar Malgonkar and ‘The Coffer Dams’ by Kamala Markandaya do not carry any year of publication. I was surprised to read that ‘Spy in Amber’ by Manohar Malgonkar was rendered into a novel by Sunita Malgonkar, his daughter, from the screenplay written by Manohar Malgonkar.

I had read about ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and also remember jotting the title down in a notebook long back. Last Sunday I found a copy of this title at Chikkadpally that I bought for hundred rupees. Before that, at Abids, I had found a copy of ‘Cooking the Punjabi Way’ by Aroona Reejhsinghani that I got for twenty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 8-4-2018)

It is hailstorm season now in these parts. There had been more than a couple of days when it had rained in the evening bringing down the temperatures leaving the city cool. Last Sunday was the most unusual Sunday morning in summertime, weather wise. It actually rained in the morning when the normal trend was the rain doing its job in the evenings. However last Sunday morning it started to rain around half past eight and for some time it looked like it would go on raining for a couple of hours. It meant I wouldn’t be able to make it to Abids for browsing on the pavements for books. But fortunately it stopped raining after an hour and all was well with the rest of the day.

I’ve been picking up books on writing since a long time and over the years I have come to own quite a large and also impressive collection of such titles. While reading one of these books I came across a recommendation of ‘Writing Fiction’ by Janet Burroway that I noted down in one of my note books. I haven’t been able to trace that notebook now‘ after finding ‘Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Fiction’ by Janet Burroway at Abids. It is a bulky volume and in the examples were excerpts from novels by known and unknown writers and also some short stories by greats such as Grace Paley (A Man told Me the Story of His Life) and also Lydia Davis (Story) whose titles I am dying to find. I haven’t found a complete book by Lydia Davis so far but have managed to find story collections that had a couple of stories by her. I have no idea how long I have to search before I find something by Lydia Davis. I got this copy for eighty rupees together with another book.

Long after I began collecting cookbooks of all kinds I found, at last, a copy of ‘A Taste of India’ at Abids. It was only a couple of years ago and that was my first copy. Last Sunday I found another copy of ‘A Taste of India: The Definite Guide to Regional Cooking’ by Madhur Jaffrey. This copy had a different cover on which it said ‘Pavilion Great Cooks.’ The print on glossy paper was different and there were dozens of beautiful colour photographs filling up the pages. The copy itself, though looking ancient, was something to behold. I got this book for eighty rupees.

The rest of the haul was made up of three more recipe books. There is nothing much to write about them. See them below here.

The Sunday Haul (on 01-04-2018)

It was a bountiful harvest of five wonderful titles at Abids last Sunday. Though there was a forecast of a cloudy sky in Hyderabad it wasn’t so when I landed up at Abids in the morning. It was too warm for comfort and it looked like it would get hotter later in the day. I am used to coming in the morning though it would have been sensible to come in the evening. Coming in the evening would mean missing out on good titles that would have been picked up by others.

The first find was a beautiful copy of ‘Gangs of Wasseypur- The Making of a Modern Classic’ by Jigna Kothari and Supriya Madamgarli. I had watched ‘Gangs of Wasseypur-II’ and had regretted not watching ‘Gangs of Wasseypur-I.’ I don’t think I will ever get to watch it in the future but I was glad I found this title.

The next find was in a heap of books selling for only ten rupees. My eyes skimmed through the titles of the books and fell on a tattered book. It was an old copy of ‘The Cat and Shakespeare’ by Raja Rao. It was a 1971 Orient Paperback edition and though the spine was exposed the pages were all inside and held together somehow.

‘After I had read ‘The Outsider’ by Albert Camus I was drawn to his writing and wanted to read more of him. I couldn’t find many titles by Camus and was on the lookout. Last Sunday on the pavement at Abids I spotted a copy of ‘Albert Camus: Selected Essays and Notebooks’ Edited and Translated by Philip Thody. The Introduction says ‘that the essays and others texts published in this volume are not primarily concerned with Camus’s philosophical or political ideas. They are intended to give a portrait of Camus the writer and literarcy critic, as well as Camus the individual.’ The book is divided into four Parts containing 18essays in Part I called ‘Lyrical Essays’ and seven essays in Part Two called ‘Critical Essays’ and the remaining two parts (Part Three and Four) are about how he wrote his books and extracts from his notebooks. This was exactly the kind of book I wanted to read so picked it up for just fifty rupees.

Near the Head Post Office from among the hundreds of books spread out on the road I managed to spot the copy of ‘Granta- Issue No 129-Fate’ that looked almost new. I picked it up mainly for Kent Haruf’s essay titled ‘The Making of a Writer’ and ‘Key Stroke’ by Will Self that was about JG Ballard’s typewriter.

Earlier while Uma was picking up books for his niece I spotted a copy of ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ Judi Barett, illustrated by Ron Barett that looked interesting and bought it. It was in a heap of children’s books selling for twenty rupees. I had come across the name often and had wondered what it could be. I was not aware that it was the title of a children’s books.

The New Pens in My Life

Sometime in February this year, my friend and fellow bibliophile Jai gave me a pleasant surprise by gifting me a Misak fountain pen after I casually mentioned to him that I was looking for another Misak in addition to the one I already had. Jai gave me a Misak almost exactly like the one I had except for minor differences. I fitted a Sheaffer nib I had lying with me to it and now it writes wonderfully. This is the Misak I got from Jai:

I had come across the name ‘Kanwrite’ somewhere but I did not realize that it was an Indian fountain pen brand. Someone in a fountain pen group on FB mentioned a name and a number of ‘Kanwrite’ makers. I sent a message on Whatsapp and got a sort of catalogue of dozens of beautiful looking pens in different colours. This is the ‘Kanwrite Desire’ I eventually selected and got within a week of ordering it. It is a beauty with a smooth finish.

The Sunday Haul (on 18-03-2018)

Perhaps to make up for the zero haul at Abids the previous Sunday, last Sunday yielded another wonderful haul. Three of the four titles I found were truly eye-popping titles of which one was a truly spectacular find. The haul did not coming cheap though for I ended up paying quite a bit. But I think they were all worth the six hundred and fifty rupees I shelled out for them.

The first find last Sunday at Abids was the aforementioned spectacular title. I spotted ‘The Greek Myths’ emblazoned in gold on the red cover. It was too striking to miss and as soon I saw it I decided to buy the book whatever the price. It turned out to be not one book but two volumes of the same title when I took a closer look. The two volumes were inside a half box which, I later discovered is called a ‘slipcase.’ When I took the two volumes out and looked at the illustrated cover I was taken aback.

It was The Folio Society edition and the books were very, very beautiful. I thought the seller would ask for something like a thousand rupees for the two-volume set. I was willing to pay that much but I was pleasantly surprised when he said the price was five hundred rupees but would give them to me for four hundred rupees. I paid three hundred and fifty rupees and the set was mine. It was a steal and I was pleased like anything at having found a wonderful title.

The second find at Abids was some kind of a mix about movies, books and a famous Hollywood actress. I found a copy of ‘5th Avenue 5 AM’ by Sam Wasson. It was about the making of the movie ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s based on the book with the same title by Truman Capote, starring Audrey Hepburn. I don’t know why I bought it but I paid forty rupees for it.

After finding these titles at Abids the rest of the haul got added at Chikkadpally on the way home. Sometime in 2015 at a sale by Best Books I had found a copy of ‘Avarana’ by SL Bhyrappa. It was a huge tome running into hundreds of pages. Like ‘Avarana’ ‘Parva’ that I found at Chikkadpally was another tome of 950 odd pages. It would take more than a month for me to finish reading it. But I was terribly pleased I did not hesitate to buy the Sahitya Akademi English version of ‘Parva’ by SL Bhyrappa the moment I saw it. I do not have any idea about it and I bought it thinking it would be something good.

At the other seller in Chikkadpally I spotted another wonderful title. It was a title related to my favorite continent- Africa. Sometime after Doris Lessing won the Nobel in Literature I picked up a copy of ‘The Golden Notebook’ but never got around to reading it. When I saw another title, a non-fiction title, by Lessing I picked it up. It was a copy of ‘African Laughter- Four Visits to Zimbabwe’ that seems to be some kind of a travelogue. I was just unconsciously looking for something like this on Africa I guess. I am glad I have something more and something very good on Africa by a Nobel laureate to read. I bought it for hundred rupees but I think it will be worth a lot more than that.

The Sunday Haul (on 04-03-2018)

If anyone had wanted proof that summer had already come to Hyderabad he would have got it last Sunday. Out at Abids in the morning around eleven it already felt uncomfortably warm. It was going to be a hot day I knew so I was prepared. I had a cap on and had also brought along a bottle of water. But there was no one to share it with since none of my friends turned up. I browsed the titles laid out on the pavements all alone. By the end of two hours I had a haul of five books including a cookbook.

I guess it was ‘Dark Star Safari’ by Paul Theroux that roused my interest in Africa that I wanted to visit and see the vast continent for myself. Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ further deepened the hunger to know more. Then came ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton and I was captivated by Africa. I still am and if anyone asks me if there’s any place I want to visit first and last I would say one of the African countries, preferably Nigeria-Achebe country. Anyway, since it looks like I would have to settle for finding more of my Africa in Abids I love to let others know about the great African writers and their books. My first find at Abids last Sunday was another copy of ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton that had a cover very different from the usual ones I had seen earlier. It was a good copy and I couldn’t help buying it. I got it for just thirty rupees.

After finding ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton I sat in the café alone and leafed through it. I read the interesting story behind the writing and publication of this classic. I had read the tale earlier in his autobiography ‘Towards the Mountain’ that I was lucky enough to find. This edition had a foreword by the publisher, Charles Scribner Jr.

The next find was shortly after I came out of the café. I saw a copy of ‘Trust Me’ by John Updike. It was a collection of short stories and since I haven’t read many short stories by Updike I picked it up. These are the 22 stories in this collection: Trust Me; Killing; Still of Some Use; The City; The Lovely Troubled Daughters of Our Old Crowd; Unstuck; A Constellation of Events; Death of Distant Friends; Pygmalion; More Stately Mansions; Learn a Trade; The Ideal Village; One More Interview; The Other; Slippage; Poker Night; Made in Heaven; Getting into the Set; The Wallet; Leaf Season; Beautiful Husbands; the Other Woman.

Many a time I’ve picked up books by unknown authors that turned out to be either good reads or books that’s been made into movies. Last Sunday I spotted a book that I had a hunch could be a good read. It was a copy of ‘Under a Raging Sky’ by Daniel Carney and picked it up to take a closer look. I read the movies ‘Wild Geese’ and ‘Wild Geese II’ were based on the novels of Daniel Carney. That was enough to make me buy ‘Under a Raging Sky’ and I got it for thirty rupees only. I hope to find more of his books in the future.

The next find was a great title. I found a copy of ‘Bhava’ by UR Ananthamurthy. I have a copy of ‘Samskara’ that I haven’t yet read but in January at the Hyderabad Literary Festival I had watched the movie ‘Ghatashraddha’ based on UR Anantamurthy’s work. The copy I found seemed to have been discarded by some library whose stamp on one of the pages was smudged. I got this copy for fifty rupees
The last find was a hefty volume. It was ‘Chef's Vegetarian Favorites from the Taj' 2006 of the Taj Group, all of five hundred pages containing recipes of vegetarian dishes from the many hotels of the Taj group in India and also in other countries. I bought this tome for a hundred rupees.

The Holi/World Book Day Haul

Last Thursday happened to be a holiday for us blokes in the Telangana government because it was Holi. It also happened to be World Book Day something which I did not bother very greatly since I felt that for me every day was a book day. Since I was at home due to the holiday I decided to do two book related things:- Read a book, buy a book.

One of the couple of things I wanted to do in 2018 was to prepare a list of titles I have to read and begin reading them one by one. One of the titles in this ‘to read’ list is ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald that pickedup at Abids the previous Sunday. I decided to begin reading it and right after breakfast I opened it and plunged into the world of Gatsby. I managed to read it until the last page reading it well past my usual sleeping time and finally finished it at eleven in the night.

Since buying a book was the second goal of the day I decided the Best Book Centre secondhand store at Lakdi ka Pul would be a nice place to hunt. I still regret not having bought the copy of Ngugu wa Thiong’O’s ‘Matigari’ that I had seen a couple of years ago at another second-hand bookstore. I had never heard of Ngugi and hand no idea who he was. Last month Ngugi mentioned ‘Matigari’ in wonderful talk he gave during his visit to Hyderabad. I still find it unbelievable that I had seen him in person. Though I had managed to get his signature on my copies of ‘Petals of Blood’ and ‘Dreams in a Time of War’ I feel like kicking myself for not getting photographed with him.

Anyway, at the Best Book Centre store I saw a nice copy of ‘Matigari’ on one of the shelves and I grabbed it. But it did not come cheap since I had to pay a hundred and eighty rupees for it. Whatever, I had the quiet satisfaction of celebrating ‘World Book Day’ for the first time in my life in a befitting manner by reading a book and also buying one.

The Sunday Haul (on 25-02-2018): Joy and Disappointment

In more than half the books on writing that I’ve read, and that’s about three hundred or so, there’s a title that’s mentioned unfailingly. Quite surprisingly I never had more than a normal desire to read it. Somehow, I did not come across ‘The Great Gatsby’ by Scott F. Fitzgerald anywhere at all and so when I saw it at Abids last Sunday I grabbed it. I got it for forty rupees. I was more than glad to have found this book that I had planned to find and read during this year. I had made a list of titles that I wanted to read this year so I got started off on it by starting to read ‘The Great Gatsby’ yesterday (Wednesday) with the intention of finishing on March 1.

The joy was meeting Jai again after a short gap. The real reason behind my joy was that he had brought with him a Misak to give to me when I had mentioned to him that I wanted one. Sometime back I had been to the Hilal pen store near Charminar and picked up a fat, brown fountain pen that wrote like a dream after I fitted a Sheaffer nib to it. I had been to Charminar to check on the store but was shocked to learn that the shop had shut down. Anyway, Jai came to my rescue and presented me with another Misak fountain pen that was exactly like the one I had. It is so wonderful to have such friends in life who unhesitatingly give away things that would bring joy to others. Thanks Jai.

Soon after that joy came the disappointment but I did not know it at that time. Ross Macdonald is one writer whose books I never fail to buy. It seems to have been my lucky day at Abids since I spotted ‘The Eighth Dwarf’ by Ross Macdonald with a seller. I was in a hurry to leave as I had guests at home waiting for me to bring biryani for lunch so I gave the book a cursory glance and took it. In the evening when I looked at the book again I realized that I had made a fundamental mistake. I had failed to check if the book had all pages. The copy of ‘The Eighth Dwarf’ I found had only 255 pages whereas an internet search showed that there are 319 pages in the book. It wasn’t the fact that I had paid forty rupees for this incomplete book that hurt me but that I had failed to check the book thoroughly that did.

Double Post Sunday: Post- 2 : Ngugi in Hyderabad

Though I possess four titles by him I haven’t read anything by Ngugi wa Thiong’O until last Sunday. I have a good idea how African writers can touch you with their vivid imagery and beautiful language after reading Chinua Achebe. Achebe’s writing had given me ideas about visiting Nigeria and other African countries to see for myself those lands and those people that these writers have brought alive in the pages of their wonderful books.

Sometime last week Kurmanath of Businessline had tweeted about Ngugi wa Thiong’ O’s visit to Hyderabad. I had read in the papers about Ngugi’s events in Delhi and also Kolkata but I never knew that he was coming to Hyderabad on Sunday. He would be in Hyderabad to launch a Telugu translation of his ‘Dreams in the Time of War’ that I had a copy of! I decided I would go to the event and get the book signed by Thiong’O. It is not every day that a writer who is on the Nobel shortlist comes to Hyderabad. In fact I realized I had another title by him- Petals of Blood- that I had found somewhere. I looked for it in my various bookshelves and found the book.

It was a wonderful evening last Sunday at the NTR Auditorium in Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University in Nampally where Ngugi launched the Telugu translation of ‘Dreams in the Time of War’ and also read out a few passages from it. It was an unforgettable evening for a couple of hundred people who filled up the hall and also spilled outside. However, it became chaotic after the reading since there was a clamour to take selfies with him and also get his signature on books. Everyone crowded around him and people had to be shooed off so he could get some breathing space. Someone decided it would be better if Ngugi signed the books outside. So the queue I was in broke off and began anew at a spot outside the auditorium.

I waited patiently while the others stood in line. One person made Ngugi sign on a thesis. A youngster standing in line before me noticed that I had two books in hand. He offered to get Ngugi’s signature on one of the books and took ‘Petals of Blood’ from me. Somehow I got his signature on the book in my hand. Afters sometime the youngster returned ‘Petals of Blood’ to me and said he got Ngugi to sign twice! I looked inside and found two pages on which Ngugi had signed!

Now after the event I checked my blog once more and found that I had found copies of ‘Devil on the Cross,’ Ngugi’s most famous novel perhaps, and also ‘Secret Lives’ a collection of short stories. I have never felt so dumb before failing to take these books along to get them signed by Ngugi. No wonder I work for the government.