So, I set out to hunt books at Abids on
Sunday after a gap of almost 6 months.
During these 6 months, the thought of going to Abids occurred several
times, but most of the times it was the ‘spirit willing, flesh weak’ syndrome
that made me stay put at home, and other times there was something or the other
at home that required my presence or attention.
Vinod had also enquired why I had not been Abid-ing all these days. This time, Shruti also pushed me into going
to Abids. And so, I went this last
Sunday to Abids to hunt books and to meet Vinod, Umashankar, and Srikanth.
I reached at around 11 o’ clock and rang
up Vinod, and I got a ‘switched off’ message.
I started wondering and then stopped wondering. There was a heap of books where I was
standing and I dove in. In the same
place earlier, the heap used to be very small, but now there were lots of
books. There were many that I wanted to
buy, but hesitated and continued looking.
I found an Adam Dalgliesh mystery by P D James. I haven’t read any Adam Dalgliesh mystery so
far and not because of lack of opportunities.
You’ll finds lots of P D James at Abids on any given Sunday. So, let me make a beginning I thought and
picked up Original Sin.
I then saw a good copy of Carlos Ruiz
Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind.
I had read this novel earlier in 2005 when it was released in India. Anyway, I had thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The novel belongs to a sub-genre of crime
fiction which is now being called ‘Bibliomysteries.’ The Shadow of the Wind is set in
Spain and begins with the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books,’ hidden in the heart of
the old city of Barcelona. This was a
good copy and I didn’t have the heart to leave it behind. Vinod usually picks up good copies of novels
that he already has and read, and gifts them to his friends. I had emulated this ‘good habit’ earlier and
had gifted a couple of ‘Abids’ books to a student of mine. I picked The Shadow of the Wind and hope to
find an interested reader for this!
Then I saw a Peter Robinson novel. Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks novels are a favourite of mine, more so because I
had picked up a couple of Inspector
Banks novels on a hunch at a Best Books sale a couple of years ago and found them to be really
good. So, Peter Robinson was ‘my
discovery.’ And happily enough, the
Peter Robinson novel that I saw and picked up turned out to be an ‘omnibus,’
two novels in one volume – Dry Bones that Dream and The
Hanging Valley. I quickly
scanned my memory bank to check if I had already read these titles. The results were hazy, and there was still a
chance that I hadn’t read these two titles.
It is quite possible I thought, that I had read some other police
procedural novel, possibly Ian Rankin’s, which also had ‘hanging’ or ‘bones’ in
the title. Either way, no loss I
thought, if not, I could always gift it away.
I paid for the three books (Rs.80!) and
put them in my bag. I then turned around
to check the smaller pile, and lo and behold (!), I saw Vinod, Uma, and
Srikanth, walking towards the same stall.
After all the ‘hi-s’ and ‘hello-s,’ I told Vinod that I had received a
‘switched off’ message when I had called him.
He said he had changed his number now that he is in Nalagonda. This was news to me. He said he had gone back to his earlier
department and now transferred to Nalagonda.
Uma and Srikanth were searching among the pile of books and each found a
different edition of the well-known chef Anthony Bourdain’s book. I think it was Kitchen Confidential, I am
not sure though. I continued my search
in the smaller pile and picked up a book I felt I had read about and I am sure
it was in the news when it came out – A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
by Marina Lewycka. The title itself was intriguing
enough and the blurbs all over the front and back and inside told me that the novel
had won a couple of prizes (Bollinger Everyman and SAGA) and was longlisted (Booker)
and shortlisted (Orange), and that it has been translated into 27
languages. There were lots of excerpts
from reviews and the most common adjective used, among the many, to describe it
was, ‘funny.’ That sort of settled the
matter for me.
I saw another book with
an arresting green, black, and red cover with an outline (silhouette!) of a
donkey in the centre. I had never heard
of the author (Patricia Lynch) or the title (The Turf-Cutter’s Donkey)
before. A small blurb on the back cover
informed me that this story is a classic of children’s literature and ‘remains one of the most magical and exciting
of Irish fantasies’ and also that it was ‘for readers aged 8-12.’ Mamoon
is seven now and she would be ready to be able to read it in a couple of years’
time. I picked it up for Mamoon’s
fledgling library, but I will read it too.
I had got 5 books from one stall, and
that too the first stall I visited. I was
sated and happy. We all trooped into the
nearest Irani and in between slurps of chai and bites of biscuit, we talked
about books and films, with the Marathi film, Sairat, dominating the
conversation. We then trooped out and
continued with our hunt. My bag was full
and I was too satisfied to carry on. But
carry on I did and did the whole round and somewhere I lost the other
three. I remembered that Shruti had
asked me to pick up a few colouring and art books for Mamoon. I found a seller with a whole heap of such
books and bought around 10 books for Mamoon.
On my way back, I saw Uma and Srikanth walking
towards me and asked me if I had seen Vinod.
I told them I saw his head somewhere and by the time I reached the spot,
he had disappeared and that he was probably engulfed by the books. They moved on and I moved on.
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