Surprise Friday Book Bonanza … Thanks to Vinod ...

After a long long time Shruti had prepared her family’s patented aachar … this time in really large quantities … I had invited Vinod home for lunch sometime in April 2008 and this pickle was then made (in really large quantities) … Vinod liked it so much and Shruti had packed a bottle for him to take back … and remembering how much Vinod had liked this pickle, Shruti wanted to give Vinod some of this season’s pickle and we arranged to meet at the OU CCD …

We met and talked and talked for almost 2 hours … books, politics, Shruti’s research, his work, etc… Vinod seemed genuinely intrigued by the research work Shruti does and supervises … they talked for a long time about linguistics and applied linguistics and all that … I confined myself to safe subjects like politics, books, and British TV serials … and the best part was Vinod’s bag of gifts … he had bought for me a surprise bag of five books … imagine!!  I was so happy that I was speechless and just about mumbled a thanks … these are the books that Vinod gifted me …

Vinod told me that this book us a must-read for all book lovers and I should not miss reading this ... I started reading that night itself ... it is in the form of letters ... so far what I have read, it is wonderful ... 

Vinod had found this at Abids last Sunday and he said this was an extra copy ... I had read Chandler's The Big Sleep earlier ... Chandler created the famous detective Philip Marlowe and is one of the writers who is credited with founding the 'hard-boiled school of detective fiction' ... so, there we are ... 

A classic, which I shamefacedly admit, I haven't read ... when I saw this book, I thought, thank god ... somehow Vinod knew I hadn't read this book ... 

Honestly, I didn't know anything about this ... had to check online ... which said Daniel Silva is an American best-selling author of espionage and thriller novels ... book looks interesting and I look forward to reading this ... 

Vinod is the one who got me h/b-ooked to Elmore Leonard and now he gives me Touch ... touched, Vinod ... the cover reminds me of Durer's 'Praying Hands' ... 

Unexpected...surprised...and very very thankful...these will keep me booked for a long time... (I didn't miss going to Abids today...!!)

I have to tell you this … sense of an ending or non?

Some of you might know that I teach English at an engineering college here in Hyderabad … it is a difficult task … for many reasons … it is a low priority subject for the majority of students who just want to pass this subject somehow, and it is not surprising that many of them barely have an idea of what they are writing … or reading, for that matter … and they sleepwalk through the entire English course … and under the circumstances bloopers are common in answer scripts …

A recent one stunned me … I couldn’t catch it soon enough and when it struck at the end, it stung!!  Remember Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense?

All right … we have a soft skills section in the third year which would help students in preparing for their various placement tests - interviews, group discussions, report writing, etc. … this test was a written one and one of the questions asked was taken from “Frequently Asked Questions during an interview” … How would you describe your ideal job?

One of the answers was …

“It is very difficult to be ideal.  I never keep myself ideal.  I go on working on something or the other even in my ideal time”

Marx and Allen would have loved it!!  Or maybe non!!

Wednesday Double Post - A Mixed Haul at Abids on Sunday & Meeting with Friends - 2

I didn’t find any Simon Brett so far and went to the next stall…hoping…I found a Harlan Coben novel, from the Myron Bolitar Series…One False Move…I have been looking for novels from this series for some time and found them too… but on at least a couple of times in the past I found the prices quoted by second-hand book sellers too much and left the books back on the shelves…so, finding One False Move at Abids for twenty rupees was indeed welcome…

As soon as I had reached the book lane, I messaged Vinod asking him where he was…my friend Pavan (familiar to the readers of my blog as Marut!!) had promised to join me at Abids and then we were to have lunch together…I was waiting for him too… and then I went on my search…I had spent almost half an hour and had found four books, but there was no response from Vinod yet…I thought he may not come in today and I continued my book search and had reached the end of the street, where a sumptuous treat awaited me in the form of two huge book piles…Rs.20 each and Rs.30 each…

As I was rooting around I saw Umashankar and Srikanth on the opposite side of the road…Uma and Sri, along with Vinod form the book hunting triumvirate that haunts Abids every Sunday morning… they too saw me and I asked where is Vinod…they said he’s following behind…and soon enough I saw him and by that time I had found another book in the Rs.20 pile I felt would make nice reading…My War with the 20^th Century by Pierre Berton…hadn’t heard the name before, but the blurb on the back cover compared Pierre Berton’s type of humour with Stephen Leacock’s…that is good enough praise for the author and the text on the cover says --  Assorted Visions, Hallucinations and other Comic Nightmares of our Time, Including Accounts of…The Great Detergent Premium Race…The Terrible Toothpaste Crisis…Goliath Tobacco’s Remarkable Comeback – and I needed no further persuasion to pick up this book…I read a couple of articles in this book after I came home and I am glad I bought this book…

By this time Pavan had arrived too and I made the introductions… and after all the greetings and pleasantries, we headed to the Irani hotel for the customary cuppa…during the cuppa Uma wanted to know what watch I was wearing and I unbuckled and showed it to him…HMT Leo…it is a rare HMT automatic watch and Uma was suitably impressed…then Pavan noticed that both Uma and Sri were wearing HMT watches…birds of a feather and that sort of thing…he he he…but of course, Vinod doesn’t wear  a watch at all!!  We have to keep a watch on him…!!

After the tea, I hung around for some more time with Pavan, while the triumvirate went back to hunt…Pavan tried to see if he could pick up something in mathematics and statistics, but he couldn’t find anything worthwhile…I already had had my fill of books, but my tummy was demanding its fill…Pavan and I then went to the Gujarati Bhojanalay near Hanuman Vyayamshala and ate like anything…aah…

After I came home I was disturbed by the missing cover on Goodbye to Elsa… I searched the book online and saw the book’s cover on amazon...was that why the cover disappeared before the book came on the streets in its second-hand avatar?  Can't say...

Wednesday Double Post - A Mixed Haul at Abids on Sunday & Meeting with Friends – 1

After around four weeks of deciding and dropping, this Sunday (20 April 2014) I finally managed to get to Abids for the mid-morning book hunt... did I have an idea what to look for? Or was it going to be a random search?  look around and see what you get kind of search?  Well, it always starts with a list…and then slowly the search becomes free for all…you don’t know what might turn up at those piles of books…

I wanted to see if anything by Simon Brett turned up… I loved reading his Fethering mysteries and Charles Paris mysteries; ebooks that I found online…I wanted to buy some of them at least, but the prices on Indian online bookstores were so prohibitive that I was stunned for a while…then, I thought, chalo, Abids mein dekhenge…so, Simon Brett was on my mind…then I wanted to see if I could get something by Jo Nesbo…I also had Len Deighton’s Hook on my list…I had found Line and Sinker at Abids some time ago and without Hook, I couldn’t start reading the trilogy...yeah, Harlen Coben too…Peter Robinson…Elmore Leonard…so many names of writers swirling around my head…

The first book that I found interesting enough to buy was something that was completely unanticipated…it had no cover…Goodbye to Elsa by Saros Cowasjee…I wondered why no cover… I remember seeing this book in a government library while I was in school and thought I should read it, but somehow didn’t … the author’s name was familiar… I also remembered reading his Stories from the Raj…and Goodbye to Elsa was only for ten rupees…I picked it up… this was from the first pile at the beginning of the street…

I went to the next pile and saw a random collection of books … and out of this random collection, I picked up two books… music and humour … Best Music Writing 2007 and Morecambe and Wise-their funniest jokes, one-liners and sketches… I don’t know how many articles I am going to read from Best Music Writing 2007, but I didn’t want to give up the book and moreover it was only ten rupees… 

Morecambe and Wise I picked up as soon as I saw the book … 

I kind of like the British kind of wry humour… (watch A Bit of Fry and Laurie…) … it is a small book and the items are taken from their various sketches they did together as Eric and Ernie…I finished it off quickly… the lines are great…sample these…

Eric: Who’s your tailor?

Ernie: Why?

Eric: That was my second question.

*******************************************************

Ernie: Can you telephone from an aeroplane?

Eric: Anyone can tell a phone from an aeroplane, can’t they?

*************************************************************

Eric: Why don’t you have a dance?

Ernie: Actually, I don’t think I will…I’m a little stiff from badminton.

Eric: It doesn’t matter where you’re from…you can still join in.

There are lots more in the book…