Book Fair and Lovely

Saturday morning. Me fast asleep. Phone rings. Its my friend Nandan. He calls me to the book fair in Quaid e Milleth college. Though still groggy, my mind registers that he has mentioned the word ‘book’ and instantly I agree to come.

Pleasantly surprised at the large crowd, we went in, hoping that perhaps we could unearth some rare gems. Initially it was a big letdown. The first few stalls had mostly Tamil books (If a dim witted snail started crawling on a Tamil sentence and I started reading it too, it would be a close call as to who would finish it first. My money would probably on the snail) The other stalls were none too inviting with entrances piled with Oxford dictionaries/ Manorama yearbooks/ Word power Made Easy and other such stuff designed to ennoble the mind.

In fact, this was maddeningly repetitive giving the fair a maze like appearance (If one sees a Watziznames stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries, followed with a Watchamacallit stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries, followed with a You-get-the-picture-stall piled high with Tamil books and English dictionaries for like 20-30 stalls it gives the feeling of moving around in circles. After all the market for Tamil books and English dictionaries cant be that immense can it?)

The first stall which in I though would cater to my reading interests was the British Council stall ( and this had nothing for sale!) The next interesting stall was the Rupa stall (actually only interesting because they had a collection of Wodehouse school stories for less than hundred which I hadn’t noticed before at Landmark/Odyssey. An immediate buy.) Satisfying to note that among popular fiction, Enid Blyton was selling well too. However times change, midnight school feasts and Ol Clear Orf doesn’t change. There was an American books stall too but since there was no major discount, the throngs of people there made no sense to even consider perusing. An interesting hardbound stall caught my attention but with prices way beyond my budget, it was sadly written off.

Only on coming out did we notice the second hand bookshops outside. This looked Promising. Very Promising. Starting from the Mount Road entrance, we decided to work our way to the college entrance. The first shop was the 10 buck stall. Most of the authors I hadn’t heard of or ever wanted to read. A few books in German. I mean proper German. And Spanish. Loads of other stuff I couldn’t imagine anybody (and I mean anybody!) would be in their proper minds to buy, even less read. I mean which shopper here would be interested in Easy Ways to Backpacking in Maine? Or a Russian travel guide( in Russian)?

Digging through the dirt though, one unearths a few diamonds. Very hard to imagine a decent copy of Danny the Champion of the world (Roald Dahl) selling for 10 bucks. The owner who gave that book away needs to be executed without any trial. Convinced my friend to buy it. I found a Peter Wimsey novel and a Mary Poppins. Nothing I particularly wanted to buy but just had to when its selling for so little. Got a pleasant surprise when I found a text on Ramayana by, hold your breath, G Krishnamurti. (Right down to the current spelling of m-u-r-t-i) I just HAD to buy it.

Got a cheap Carl Hiassen and a Ram Guha from the next few stalls. And a Graham Greene. 10 bucks is decent for a slightly torn dog eared copy. On a whim purchased a book on travels in 19^th century Egypt by some arbit guy. Sounded interesting though. Steered clear of the pirated books stall redolent with Dan Brown and Harry Potter but even a cursory glance there seemed to be a market for Pony Tailed Guru’s books.

Getting dark, we decided to leave. Not before noticing a scary sight of the book sellers using kerosene lamps and placing them carelessly over the books. A single spark would have been enough to have set fire to the entire set ( which in my view was much much better to the actual fair inside

Good fun!