Hyderabad Book Fair December 2018 -- 4 books on Indian Art

Last day of this year’s Book Fair … 25 December 2018 … tried valiantly all the previous days to visit the book fair, but no success, and so I was determined … I wanted to reach before the crowds came in and accordingly I left home at 12, grabbed some lunch and reached NTR Stadium at around 1.30, and saw that there was considerable hustle and bustle … aah, on public holidays and Sundays, the book fair opens its doors to the public at 12 noon … rest of the days, it’s 2 o’ clock … could have started earlier …

I didn’t have any particular book or author in mind … I was interested to see the stuff in secondhand book stalls … I sauntered … walked in and out of various stalls … lots of books looked interesting, but I knew I would buy them just for initial kicks and then they would pile up … I gravely thought of the books I had bought last year at the book fair … I had read only two books and a couple of short stories from the 7 books I purchased last time … I was curious about all those religious books’ stalls … I went inside a couple of stalls and looked around a bit … some were also selling music, incense, and religion related paraphernalia … the people looking after these stalls looked like volunteers … last time, I had bought a copper ring in the shape of a snake at one such stall … the man who was manning that stall told me that my mind would become sharp like a snake … the fingers on my left hand looked bare, so I bought it … I have been wearing it every day since that day …

And there was this stall which looked chaotic … in the sense that there was no order or arrangement … I like such places … lots of hidden things … and lots of work for the brain, to make connections … you never know what you could end up with … I checked if I had enough cash … and began rummaging … I went stack by stack on the shelves, pile by pile on the floor … there I saw a collection of books on Indian art … old, new, modern, regional, etc. … mmmm, I thought … I found the mother lode … ideally I would have liked to buy everything on offer … but I curbed my enthusiasm, despite the card in my pocket … I calmed myself down and sat down to sort out the pile and see what I wanted absolutely … I selected five books … I knew this was going to exceed my budget …

I found two books on individual artists in the Contemporary Indian Artists Series … one on Paritosh Sen and the other on Krishen Khanna … they looked like unsold books not handled properly … here and there the pages looked soiled … I re-rummaged and saw that there were a few more copies of the same books, and selected the best looking ones … after all, there is more to see here than to read …

Then I saw this book on conversations with Indian artists by Anupa Mehta … interviews with 20 contemporary artists and images of their art … this was really good and the images were lovely … more to read here …

 

Then there was book on 101 Rare Artworks from the History of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art … it is a sort of auction catalogue of Osian … the pictures of the artworks were sharp and lovely and each had accompanying text …

I also wanted to buy this lovely book on Bengali Kalighat paintings, and added it to these four books … and then the bookseller and I began this bargain dance for the four books … na na no no … haan haan na na … yes yes … why not … arre bhai … last day … haan haan … na na … de do de do … I told him if you want your price, then you have to add the book on Kalighat Paintings … he was horrified … arre na na … that book alone is 700 saab … and finally he relented and gave the four books at the price I quoted …