I went to the second hand books market at Abids yesterday...I don’t remember
when I last visited this amazing Sunday book sale...must be almost 16-17 years
ago...I don’t even have memories of that visit... and ever since I began
reading Vinod’s blog, I have enjoyed his retelling of his various hauls, his
lucky finds, his regrets about leaving some book behind, his obsessed pursuit
of rare books of even more rare and hidden authors...though I do manage to buy
second hand books at a couple of permanent second hand book stores in
Hyderabad, I had wanted to revisit Abids and be part of this madness...and the
prices are unbelievable...
I had to visit a colleague of mine briefly on Sunday morning... the area
was close to Abids, and I thought why not go to Abids and try my luck...I might
also meet Vinod there...and so I went, heart full of hope to Abids...and just
as I turned the corner into the street where books were being sold in heaps on
both sides of the road, I thought I saw Vinod, though I hadn’t seen him for the
last two years...I went up to him and said ‘hi’ and indeed it was Vinod... I
was pleased that my first objective in visiting Abids was fulfilled early on...
I was happy to see Vinod and we chatted as we moved on...Vinod found a Parker
soon enough...Stardust...wow...hmmm...keen practised eye of the accomplished
book hunter...I didn’t have Stardust...why didn’t I see the book
first...tcha...ha ha ha...
I looked around...I was looking for Parkers, as usual...hadn’t read a
Parker in a while...also looking for Peter Robinsons...and through my
recent searches on the Internet through various links beginning with Parker’s on
Wikipedia, I discovered for myself names of some very interesting crime fiction
writers...Simon Brett, Robert Crais, John Lescroart, Harlan
Coben, Gregg Hurwitz...I hadn’t read any of them...and there was
also Jo Nesbo... I was looking for books by all these writers...
At some places there were heaps of books...Rs.10 each...Rs.20 each...at
some places...Rs.30 each...wow!!...one needs a lot of patience and perseverance
to hunt for books in these book heaps...one might find that one book that one
has been looking for...I was thoroughly tempted...two more bibliophile friends
of Vinod were co-hunting books with him...after we walked the length of the
road, we reached an Irani hotel and Vinod invited us for tea...we spent half an
hour talking books...our mutual recent reads...recent finds...writers discovered...Vinod
had written many posts recently about his discovery of the Indian English
writer Arun Joshi...Vinod told me that Joshi is a wonderful writer and
that his novels resonate even today...and he has doggedly pursued his novels
and managed to find four...one more is remaining...he also told me about his
recent rare find...All About H. Hatterr... an outstanding novel that
compares with the best of novels written in the world...for some strange reason
this novel is not that easily available in bookstores...So, Vinod was pretty
chuffed about his recent bookquisitions...
Once we finished our tea, we came out and resumed our search.... we soon
came upon another pile of books...Rs.20 each...Vinod pointed out a Le Carré
novel...The Naive and Sentimental Lover ...I had read a Le Carré
novel earlier...The Spy who Came in from the Cold ...but the novel I picked
up was not a spy novel, though I was looking for crime fiction...and in the
same heap, I detected E. L. Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times...good
one...2 books...
It was getting late...I wanted at least five to round off my first haul at
Abids...desperately searching...I found a rather big looking Peter Robinson
book...Playing with Fire...do I have this title? No, I think not...the book has a photo of the
actor who plays the role of DCI Banks in the TV series...a grim looking chap...four
books...
and then I saw a Deighton book...I had recently read the Game,
Set, Match trilogy and was quite impressed and liked the oddball characters
Bernard Samson and Werner Volkmann...this book was Spy Sinker...the last
in the second Samson trilogy...hook, line, and sinker...
hmmm...so, where do I
now find hook and line? an element of suspense
and excitement enters the book hunt now...I won’t be able to read Sinker without
reading Hook and Line first... I have to look for them now... some purpose also
creeps in to the hunt...five books...mission accomplished? but I hadn’t found
many books by writers I was looking forward to reading... I gave myself 10
minutes before quitting the search for the day...I moved along and found books
stacked on makeshift shelves...not heaps...these must be expensive...I was
delighted to locate 3 novels by Harlan Coben...I wanted to buy them and
asked the price...each book was priced at almost the total price of all the 5
books that I had already purchased...not that I was not in a position to buy
them, I simply didn’t want to buy at that price...the chap reduced the price,
but it still didn’t come near the price I offered to pay...so, this went on for
some time...I stood my ground...they did not yield beyond their last
quote...impasse...no sale...no purchase...some other time perhaps...
This was a memorable visit to Abids Sunday book market after a long long
time...I met Vinod after a long long time and I got 5 books...I already started
reading Lescroart’s The First Law...
1 comment:
Jai, there's no doubt about it. You've caught the Abids bug. You will keep coming no matter what.
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