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 …
