After a gap of almost two years, I visited the Sunday second-hand books bazaar at Abid’s yesterday. The main purpose was to meet my friend Vinod Ekbote, who I hadn’t met for, again, almost two years. It was a nice feeling wandering along the main street lined with books displayed on either side. Though there were a lot of booksellers and stalls, the usual Sunday bustle was missing. This is the month of Ramzan and some of the Muslim booksellers had probably decided to take a break.
Vinod and I had a long chat, spiced with Hyderabadi Onion Samosas and hot tea at Star of India Irani café. We caught up with our lives and jobs and the books that we had read, book recommendations, the state of the nation, etc. We talked about our respective writings. I bragged a bit about my poetry translations. The chat continued after our tea session as we started our hunt. I was not in a very big mood for book hunting, but when I came across a wonderful book on impressionist painting, with lovely pictures of paintings, and which was available for only Rs.100, I couldn’t hold back.
I have so many books on impressionist paintings, but still my eyes light up when I see another one. If not for me, I could gift it to some art-lover friend, I tell myself. We browsed along, a couple of books caught my fancy, but I wondered if I could find time to read them and held myself back. It was nearing 1.30 in the afternoon and I decided to stop and head back home. I told Vinod I could drop him near his house on my way back, but I had to pick up my favourite biriyani from Café Bahar, which would take a couple of minutes.
So we headed back, I bought my biriyani, and we stopped at Chikkadpally. There were some more booksellers there, and Vinod said we’d find something useful here. The display was neat and I found a book of Dom Moraes’ poems. I was not looking to read Dom Moraes’ poems, but since this was the only poetry book I could find, I thought I’d pick it up. Then Vinod saw this novel, ‘Above Average’ by Amitabha Bagchi. He told me he had read it and that it was a good novel. He picked it up, paid for it and gifted it to me on the spot. That felt so good!!
Vinod’s house was close by and he said his son would be coming to pick him up. I bid him goodbye and went on my way home.
During all this time at Abid’s, I couldn’t help but recall my favourite poet, K. V. Tirumalesh’s Hyderabad poem, ‘Book Collector,’ set among the books and booksellers on the footpaths of Abid’s ... in case you're interested, here is the poem in my English translation ...
... and here are some pictures of the Sunday Books Bazaar at Abid's ...
