Monday, September 21, 2015

Abids on September the 13th … Mamoon on a roll …



All three of us, Shruti, Mamoon, and I, decided to spend the morning at Abids on Sunday, the 13th of September.  Shruti hadn’t met Vinod in a long time.  She had wanted to meet Vinod to seek his advice and opinions on a few administrative related procedural matters.  “I want to meet Vinod and pick his brains,” is what she’d been saying for a couple of months now.  Mamoon wanted activity books and story books. And there was a request from my teacher.  She wanted some basic letters and numbers practice books for her grandson.  I had no particular agenda this time and anyway, my agenda-ed plans mostly never work.  We also decided to have lunch, after the books hunt, at the Gujarati Bhojanalay at Ramkote.  I was mainly looking forward to that!

Umashankar and Srikanth couldn’t make it to Abids that day.  So, Vinod and we three decided to meet at the Taj Mahal hotel for coffee, and for ice cream for Mamoon.  Shruti got enough time to pick Vinod’s brains during the coffee session.  I kept interjecting their serious talk with my half-baked witticisms. 

After their discussion, and before we left to see books, Vinod and I did a barter … ha ha …  Vinod has found Stephen Fry’s book Paperweight the previous Sunday and had bought it … he had written in his post that he already had a copy, but did not want to leave this good copy behind … I read the post and raised my hand … Vinod humourously replied that he would give it to me in exchange for an ebonite pen … I readily agreed … anything for a Stephen Fry book … I continue to be a great fan of Stephen Fry’s work on television … I thoroughly enjoyed watching A Little bit of Fry and Laurie, Fry and Hugh Laurie’s half hour episodes of hilariously witty and irreverent sketches … and also their Jeeves and Wooster … Stephen Fry was in fine form in the TV series Absolute Power … and I hadn’t read anything written by Fry and so I accepted this offer … Vinod had brought Paperweight (Fry writes in the introduction about the title … self-deprecatory wit?) with him and gave it to me … I took out the Deccan Onyx ebonite pen that I had brought for Vinod and gave it to him … he looked surprised … “hei, I was not really serious about the exchange,” he said … but the exchange took plae anyway … and he was happy about the pen though … 
 


Mamoon really came into her own once we started the book rounds … she was excited, there was a smile on her face, and she wanted every book … she actually waded into the rows of books on the pavement … I had to tell her to be a bit careful lest she trampled on the books …



She looked at colouring books, story books, activity books, and Shruti helped her in choosing … she picked up a lot of story books and put them back … she wanted story books that had not more than two to three lines in a page and full of pictures … some books had pages full of lines … some books had only pictures … very few books fit her criteria …



Then came the craft books, which were again carefully chosen by Shruti … the colouring books were chosen by Mamoon … and there were some English activity books too … Mamoon was able to put together around a dozen books … and she was very pleased … she got to choose, you see … 




 
And when I asked her if she liked and enjoyed her morning at Abids Sunday book market … she gave a big smile and said a loud ‘yes’ … she also said she’d like to visit Abids again …



It was nearing 1 o’ clock and by then clouds had started gathering and we felt rain drops … Vinod had come on his bike and the clouds and rain drops gave him cause for worry and he bid us a reluctant adieu and left … we lingered on for a few more minutes … Shruti and Mamoon did some girl girl shopping … and by that time my tummy was growling … we all went to the Gujarati Bhojanalay for lunch … the ghee-smeared rotis were outstanding, as usual … the cabbage dish was too good … the dal and the peas curry were yum yum … and there was that raw green chilly soaked in tamarind or something and salt … and jaggery … and yummy buttermilk … and curd … and we ate like anything … (I will take photos the next time I visit this place … slipped my mind, I should say …  or maybe my hunger and the mouth-watering fare made me oblivious to anything …. )

By the time we reached home after the heavy tramping at Abids and heavy eating at Gujarati Bhojanalay, we were already nodding off … and we slept like anything that afternoon …

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Ex Libris … a must-read book for all those who love everything about books …

Being a ‘voracious’ omnivorous reader and all that I should have known about this book much much earlier than just a couple of months or so back considering that this little gem of a book was published in 1998!  But all the same, I am glad that I got to know of this book through my fellow blogger, friend, and bibliovenator©, Vinod!  Vinod had the spotlight on him in June this year where he shared his top five books with the readers of New Indian Express
(http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/527112/The-New-Indian-Express-Hyderabad/23-06-2015/show=touch#page/16/2) and Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris was one of the five.  Out of the five, I had read two, and one of them was gifted by Vinod.  I read more about Ex Libris and after that I was determined to buy and read the book.  I hunted for the book at Abids without any luck; tried secondhand bookshops, again without luck; and finally, unable to bear the delay purchased the book on amazon.  There was some discount, of course!

If you love books, literature, words, reading, writing, bookshops, printing, proofreading … in fact, anything and everything to do with books, then you will love this book … it is a slim book, no doubt, but as they say, ‘don’t go by the size’ …


The book has 18 easy-sized essays on different aspects of the ‘book’ … when you start reading, the first one will surely get you hooked … it is about ‘marrying libraries’ … what happens when two book mad people meet, live together, and marry each other … what happens to their ‘libraries’ … Fadiman and her husband decide to merge their libraries after knowing each other for 10 years, living together for 6, and being married for five years … the process is difficult because, Fadiman says, “George is a lumper.  I am a splitter.  His books commingled democratically, united under the all-inclusive flag of literature.  Mine was balkanized by nationality and subject matter” … how they manage to arrive at an agreement, how did they tackle the problem of duplicates (they didn’t want to do away with their respective copies … in case they split up!), how they now feel that they have to hang on together now that they have burned their bridges … and how did the merged library end up after the merger … and the final feeling of “truly being married” now that that their libraries are one …


This essay is so delightful and Fadiman writes with such ease and love for books that I closed the book and went to my shelves and stared at the books in my small library for some time … then there is this indulgent essay on the joy of Sesquipedalians … yeah, the fascination for long obscure  archaic words … and just like the odds-and- ends shelf at home, Fadiman writes about her odd-books shelf … and the themes of the essays go out in every direction … you have one about the sonnet, about editing, writing on the margins, gender reference, cataloguing … it goes on … radiating in all directions with the book at the centre … 

Saturday, September 5, 2015

The Three Deccan Onyxes …

The Onyx is one of the staple models from the Deccan Pens’ stable.  It is a sort of bread-and-butter pen for user-customers.  Everything is as a Deccan fountain should be, except for subtle designing that they spend time and skill over their other slightly more expensive sort of limited edition pens.  The Onyx keeps changing its shape and keeps moving up and down in terms of size too.  So, when you ask for an Onyx you might get a model that is currently on display, which may not be exactly the model that you see in the pictures here.  Onyx, then, is a straightforward ebonite ED filler fountain pen.

I purchased this set of 3 Onyx fountain pens during my previous visit to the Secunderabad branch of Deccan Pens, when I had purchased the Deccan Wispys too.  This set of 3 has one light striated brown, one dark striated brown, and one striated green.  These pens are actually really thin, slightly bigger than the Deccan Wispy.  These pictures make them look fatter.  When I saw them, I was not sure whether I wanted these pens or not.  They looked nondescript, but for me a Deccan FP is a Deccan FP and somewhere I also felt that I should not abandon these pens just because they are not glamourous. 

Ha ha ha … itta excuje kaiku de rein bhai … lene ka dil kara to le liye … bus uttaich … arre, jaando bhai … bachche ko kaiku pareshan karrein …
baataan nakko karo, pichchaaraan batao … 

hau bhai, abhbhich batatoon … haan, yeh dekho pen ki pichcharaan …  



The clips look straight and sturdy ...


One gets these accidental beautiful designs only on ebonite ...



These are the cap jewels ... very well rounded and symmetrical with the caps and clips



In these pens too they have used the Wality nibs ...  I had bought these three and the Deccan Wispy together and this is the first time I was seeing such slim Wality nibs ...


Regular ebonite feeders ...


A side view of the nibs and feeders


Another look at the swirls ...


Here's how thin they are actually ... the Onyxes along with the Wispys ...


And for those who are familiar with the MB 146, this is how thin the Wispys and Onyxes look in comparison ... 

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Come one, Come all … Sunday ko Hyderabad aavo ... Abids mein booksaan dekho …

I have been writing about visiting Abids on Sundays and buying secondhand books (at very low prices…) and meeting Vinod and his friends and all that for quite some time now … I enjoy my visits to Abids and hunting for books … but, Vinod is the real bibliovenator© (there, I have coined a neologism for you Vinod!! Copyright Copyright…) here … he is there at Abids at 11 or so every Sunday, come rain or shine, come company or not … he can hunt in a pack, he can hunt alone … and every Friday or Saturday, you can check his blog and you will a find fresh post uploaded with pictures and descriptions of books he bought last Sunday (go on … check it out … he blogs at www.vinodekbote.blogspot.in ) …

And both of us keep writing about picking up books for ‘only’ 20 Rs., or from a heap of books selling for ‘only’ 30 Rs. and so on … and sometimes for even ‘only’ 10 Rs. … so, the previous Sunday, I decided to take some pictures and tempt all of you … of course, Calcuttans might say … arre, ki bolcho, Park Street mein aao, paanch rupeye mein book milega … or Mumbaikars might say … kaiko khali peeli timepass karrelere bhai, Flora Fountain aake dekho


Abids is also one of the prime attractions of Hyderabad on Sunday mornings for bibliophiles … wonder why the tourism department hasn’t picked it up …

So, let's start from the top ... descending order or what?


High price, no?


'3 for 100 offer' ... It is from this pile that I picked up three books mentioned in my previous post ... 


Another seller with '3 for 100' offer ... 


This pile is at the end of the 'bookseller's limit' on the Bata galli, just before the Irani ... also my favourite pile of books ... very tedious, requires lots of patience, but tremendously satisfying ... 


Next to that is another 30 Rs. pile ... 


See! 20 Rs. pile ... slightly more organised here ... 



Another 20 Rs. section ... another favourite seller ... neatly organised here ... 




You have growing children at home?  Lots of practice books ... story books ... full time pass ... 



Arre iski!! dus rupeye mein booksaan? dus rupeye mein kya milta yaaron? 

Bas hai? aur dekhte ... ? kab aate phir ... hyderabad ku? Abids mein milinge, chai peeyinge, usmania khayinge ... aur booksaan dekhinge ...