Abids on 29th – Part 1 – two books

I think it was the 29^th of September 2013…Sunday…Shuba was in Hyderabad with Teju…Shuba is my sister-in-law and a famous person in Coimbatore…she was earlier a famous person in Chennai…Chennai’s loss is Coimbatore’s gain…she is an avid reader of my posts here and after reading my posts on Abids hauls, she said she’d like to visit when she’s in Hyderabad…so, since she was here, I arranged for a trip to Abids on the morning of 29^th September…but as it happens with famous persons, she had to cancel the Abids trip and had to go elsewhere to meet a friend…sigh…that’s the trouble with famous people…one is not sure of their plans till the last minute…so, since I had already asked Anand, our on-call driver to drive us to Abids and back, I decided to go alone, but I decided to make it a short visit…and the previous day all of us had visited Charminar and I had wanted to explore and buy some things that one finds only in Charminar, but didn’t want to stop and get down from the car ever so often because of the heavy evening crowds and also didn’t want to disturb the delicate balance inside the car, what with two restless kids and their mothers exercising great restraint…with great reluctance…where was I?  Haan…so, on Sunday morning, I thought I’d do a quick trip to Abids, see what I can get in 30 minutes or so, meet Vinod and then go to Charminar…to buy the things I left unbought the previous day…I didn’t disclose my plans to Shruti…the best laid plans of…haan, exactly, that’s why…

I went to Abids and looked around desultorily…to see if something catches my eye…one needs a lot of patience searching for books in Abids...and I was not…particularly patient that morning…but still I managed to pick up two books…sort of companion books…Grumpy Old Men: A Manual for the British Malcontent by David Quantick and its sequel or part-2 or something similar… Grumpy Old Men (On Holiday)…both were hardbound books available for Rs.20 each and I like the British kind of humour…I started reading GOL and it is not bad...and then out of curiosity, I checked the prices online...ha ha ha...one book cost 5.99 pounds and the other 11.99 pounds...here, both books, not even one dollar... Abids I love you...