It
was last Sunday actually, in the midst of festival holidays that I shook off
some blues and went to Abids. I reached
early, according to Abids Sunday standards and saw that some sellers were
already in place behind mounds of books.
I was going through one book mound of a familiar seller and saw a lot of
‘English literature university text books.’
It looked like somebody had offloaded a literary part of his/her life. Moving sideways, I espied the raybanned Umashankar
seemingly waiting for Vinod. He was
indeed, and shortly Vinod swung into view.
He had already made a purchase and it was be-clutched in his hands. We sauntered along, the weather was fine, it
was sunny, but not hot. I located a book
that I had heard about and saw frequently on amazon, The Girl with the Pearl Earring.
The title of the book is the name of a
painting by the renowned Dutch painter Vermeer. I was at some point in time very much
interested in western art and used to pore over paintings and books and bought those
slim books in the Great Artists series whenever I could. I was familiar with
this painting, but didn’t know the details.
Neither did I know any details about the book. I picked it up and read the blurb and discovered
that this is a historical novel written by Tracy Chevalier and she gives us a
fictional story with Vermeer, the model, the painting, and 17th
century Holland. I wanted this book, but
the seller quoted a price which I felt was high and kept the book back. There is this ‘boni’ sentiment among traders
and I happened to be his first customer and he wanted to sell the book. I asked for half of what he quoted, he smiled
and asked for 5 rupees more. I got the
book for 80 rupees.
When
I checked out the details of this book later, I found that this book, published
in 1999, has sold three million copies in 36 languages till 2008!! It has received high praise, and was made
into a film in 2003.
We
turned left for chai and samosas and talked about among other things, recent Telugu
films, books read, in-read and unread, and the upcoming Hyderabad book fair. Time to hit the streets again. My favourite seller, from whose book mound
one can get books for 20 rupees each, was missing. The shop whose front he used as his shop on Sundays
was open that day, so he must have gone elsewhere or decided not to bring his
wares for sale. I had got some good books from his shop during my previous
visits and I was disappointed that day. Anyway,
I went along, and caught up with Vinod and Umashankar. Vinod had found another book, and he showed
me the inner cover … was it the signature of Asokamitran, the renowned writer? It looked like the writer had gifted this
book of short stories, which also carried one of his stories, to somebody and
signed his name below … oye Vinod, you lucky fellow!!
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