Second Hand Book Stalls

I was perhaps the first time in years that I faulted and defaulted. I did not write, not even an half hour a day nor read, not even an hour a day. That should be the basic minimum, shouldn’t it? Even when things are tugging you in all directions, nothing seems to be going right. Especially when nothing is going right.

I creaked my way to read blogs that have been the staple, looking for that spark to get me out of melancholic lethargy; to get me off procrastinating.

Nut among the reminiscing of the Darya Gunj book stalls, there was still more melancholic news. Paley passed away, bver read her books, but I mourn the passing of every author. And then heard of Aini Apa. The hennaed hair came back to memory. As Zafar Anjum at DreamInk pointed, she made quite an impression on those that read Urdu literature.

Even though her Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire) was universally acclaimed as her best word, I enjoyed her Patjhar Ki Awaz ( The Voice of Autumn) even more.

Darya Gunj : never been there, would one day like to. A friend told me once: It is a pilgrimage to those that love books.

I haven’t made that pilgrimage yet, but I did go to the place that started it all. Connaught Place. In the late seventies, early eighties, as he dusk settled on Lutyen’s city, its imposing architechture first would fall int a gloomy silence that would be shattered away in minutes. Booksellers came, in vans and bicycles, some carried their wares on their, back, a whole family sometimes. And I wondered how close the scene must have been when the pyramids were being made, worker trooping in from all over to build a pyramid of books that might last until midnight and slowly fade away to beging again the next day.

There were all sorts of books available: fiction and non, good books and bad. There were no bars. You might be sixteen, if you wanted an old copy of Playboy; you could just pick up and pay for the well perused - sometimes semen stained - copy. I bought, excited at being able to, my first books by Anonymous. “Him,” “Her,” “They.”

I don’t remember today what the story was or what the plot was. It must have been good for I finished it quite quickly and went back for more.

There was something for everyone, sold by book sellers more knowledgeable than most librarians I had met. There were books by Enid Blyton, if you wanted to buy some for your kids, there were Nick Carter stories, melodramatic cases fought by Perry Mason. Until today I wish I had a secretary like Della Street.

I bought a whole set of National Geographic from 1957 to 1962 at Rupees 1.20 per magazine. The logistics of carrying it back to the shack I called home then was a nightmare; the whole thing probably weighed more than I did.

I bought there too, my first copy of Paradise Lost.

There were other such stalls too, dearer to me. The one that lines of the walls of present day Nizam’s College for Women in Hyderabad. Now, I don’t really know if it was the beautiful girls trooping out of its gates that made the shops all that more alluring. Maybe so but the boks there were a collection I drooled over, the booksellers helpful. There was every book that could be found.

I have no idea if they are still there, if they aren’t, it is a big loss to the city and the people who love books.