Finally … the MARTINBECK set is complete …

Yessss, and it is complete … just a few days before the end of the year, the last two remaining novels in the MARTINBECK set were delivered … The Fire Engine that Disappeared and Cop Killer … Nos 5 and 9 and the letters I and C in the series …

I have been pursuing the completion of this set ever since I came across 4 novels in this series in March 2015 … I have written this before, but I wish to reiterate that this set, published by Harper Perennial during 2006-2007, offers a comprehensive retrospective of the MARTINBECK series through ‘introductions’ by fellow ‘police procedure’ and crime novel writers …

Henning Mankell, the author of the well-known ‘Inspector Wallander’ novels writes an introduction to Roseanna, Michael Connelly, writer of the immensely popular Detective Bosch novels introduces The Locked Room, Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse novels writes an introduction to The Fire Engine that Disappeared, and another husband-wife crime writer duo (like Wahloo and Sjowall), Sean and Nicci French, write an introduction to The Laughing Policeman … Andrew Taylor, known for his Lydmouth series and other crime and historical novels, introduces The Man on the Balcony, Val Mcdermid, author of the Dr Tony Hill series and other crime novels has an introduction in The Man who went up in Smoke, and crime fiction reviewer and film critic, Michael Carlson, writes an introduction to Murder at the Savoy …

These essays by such popular and formidable writers could by themselves become a separate book … and it is also enchanting to see all these acclaimed CF writers talking about the ‘Martin Beck’ novels of Sjowall and Wahloo, their seniors in the ‘police procedural’ genre …

Apart from these ‘introductions,’ each novel has some ‘extras’ at the end … essays about this specific genre (some of them repeated across the ten novels), interview pieces with the authors, their biographies, the legacy of the authors, brief bios about other CF writers, other CF novels of the same kind, etc.  …

All in all, it was a nice journey … but I think I gave in too quickly at the end … in spite of them being ‘used books,’ I paid much more for the last three novels in the series than I paid for the earlier seven put together … I think the seller on amazon caught on to this fact that there is this bakra going after the novels in this series … it is no secret actually, it is all there in my posts … (he he … too much, Jai … overaction, overaction only) … anyway, the one thing I am pleased about is all the novels in this set that I bought (from various sources) are used books …

It is a nice way to round off 2016 … not an achievement as such, but some satisfaction … now finally, my set looks like this …

There are other books from other series’ that also came in during the last couple of weeks of 2016, all crime fiction … I will put up posts in the new year …

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2017 … and please continue reading …    

Visit to Hyderabad Book Fair … good for Mamoon, dull for me …

Shruti wanted all of us to visit the Book Fair.  She hadn’t visited the HBF for many years and yeah, we set out on a Sunday afternoon.  I was open minded as I only wanted to check out the second hand books stalls.  I had a vague list of names of authors whose books I am currently thinking of hoarding.  I think all three of us were going to the book fair just like that.  First we’ll go there and then see what happens.  Actually, that’s a good approach.  You mean, like ‘life is like a box of chocolates and that sort of a thing?’  Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing, exactly.   

Anyway, off we went on that Sunday afternoon (17 Dec 2016) to the Hyderabad Book Fair.  That Sunday happened to be a Children’s Special Day or something and as we entered the Fair, we could see a number of children seated under a shamiana and a young lady was telling them a story.  It was quite nice actually, though I didn’t stop to see, I could hear her very clearly.  She was a really good story teller, and brought the story alive with vocal sound effects, voice modulations, songs, and solid narrative skills.  She soon finished with the story she was narrating and started another story, and this time it was a story from Bengal.  She started with a sort of children’s song and that caught my attention.  I had learnt this song and used to sing to Mamoon with my rudimentary singing skills and pathetic Bengali pronunciation.  So, I was listening to the narration as I was entered and exited the first few stalls. 

My interest was only in second-hand book stalls and I kept firmly to that line of enquiry.  It was a Sunday and there was a huge crowd of children accompanied by their parents.  A number of them could be seen excitedly browsing and persuading their parents to buy books for them.  I am not a pessimist as such, but it was heartening to see parents also obliging their children.  It was already half an hour and I had gone in and out of half the stalls by then and not a single book to boast of.  I was not too disturbed.  I saw that Shruti and Mamoon were on their own trip.  I went over to them and saw that they were looking for ‘chapter books’ in English for Mamoon.  I continued my desultory search.  I saw a bunch of teenagers chattering excitedly about nothing in particular and shouting out names of books and authors … have you read this … no, I haven’t … did you see this book?  yeah, I saw it in that stall over there … which one?  The one over there … really?  I swear, I saw it … and this yikkering bunch would either move in front of me or follow me to a second hand book stall … oh god, it was so frustrating … 

And in between I managed to find a book I recognized … it was an Orient Paperback edition of Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope … I bought it purely for nostalgia’s sake … I have read about the novel and almost everything that I have read says that it is a formidable novel … and also I bought it as a companion to my copy of Kanthapura, also an Orient Paperback edition.  

And by that time I had lost interest in my search, what with the yakking teenagers and my somnolence.  I went over to Shruti and Mamoon and they had selected some English ‘chapter books’ for Mamoon.  Now they wanted some easy to read Telugu and Hindi story books … I joined the search and I was told to look for books with illustrations, large letters, and only three to four lines in a page.  We went in and out of many book stalls and put together quite a collection for Mamoon.  

 

 

And in between one of the stalls was giving away copies of The Quran in English translation.  I took one. 

When we finally finished our browsing and buying and came out, I saw those babbling teenagers again.  When I saw them outside the book fair enclosure, they were not weighed down by books or anything.  It looked like these jabbering teenagers bought no more than three or four books altogether.  Considering the racket they were creating, I felt they’d buy at least 50 books.  Bloody racketeers …     

et tu, mamoon?

It had been a particularly exhausting week (around three weeks ago) and I hadn’t been sleeping well too.  When finally Sunday came around, I wanted to wake up late and also catch some sleep in the afternoon.  This pattern of my wishful Sundays has been going on for too long.  After the frustration and irritation of missed Sunday siestas invariably due to sounds and noise, I have taken this in my stride and have learnt to go sleepless.  But that Sunday, I was desperate for some sleep in the afternoon.  Mamoon doesn’t want to sleep in the afternoon, though whenever Shruti and I cajole her into getting some sleep on Sundays and holidays, after initial protests, she is usually the first to nod off and would sleep soundly for a couple of hours at least.  But Mamoon resists and we sometimes don’t have the energy to argue with her and as it happens, a couple of Mamoon’s friends come over and Shruti graciously tells me to go catch my forty winks and says she’d keep an eye on them.  I feel horribly guilty about this.  I lie down and try very hard, and some noise disturbs me and I can’t sleep.  I get up within twenty minutes totally disjointed and mad.  So, the next week, I tell Shruti that I’d take care of Mamoon and ask her to catch up with some sleep.  Shruti falls asleep easily.  Chalo, at least somebody is getting some sleep.

This part of the narrative is connected to the other part that concerns the crumbling walls around me.  No, it is not as serious as it sounds.  At first when this used to happen I would be astonished.  How the hell, sort of reaction.  It used to (and continues to…) happen somewhat like this … I would go to the bedroom dressing table, have a look around, and then go and stand in front of the medicine cabinet and would be looking at the things kept on top of the washing machine … I am obviously looking for something … and out of the blue I’d hear Shruti’s voice, ‘the red hair brush is inside the cupboard below the dressing table…,’ I snap my head in her direction … how the hell … she has a wicked smile on her face … it was and is uncanny … then this started to happen too often for my comfort … she was tracing my line of thought … following my eye movement, head movement, my expressions … and then … wham!  ‘your sweater is in the washing machine’ ‘we shall have biriyani for dinner today’ … I would be thinking about momos in the morning, and there she was thrusting a bag of momos towards me in the evening … how maan?  Can anybody track somebody’s thoughts and movements so accurately? Maybe I have stayed long enough with Shruti for her to understand every expression and every movement … yeah, but, who has the patience to observe … I feel like Watson before Holmes … have I become so transparent, I wondered … she would be observing me all the time (can’t help … too much love, you see …) but sometimes she’d just keep quiet, won’t say anything sparing a thought for my fragile feelings … aeh, I have become too predictable …

Coming back to the Sunday with which I started this narrative … that afternoon I desperately wanted to sleep … I didn’t want Mamoon to bring any of her friends over and I wanted her to sleep too, so that Shruti need not stay awake to keep an eye on her … all plans were in place and I wanted to tell Mamoon this … so, after lunch, I looked at Mamoon and said in a rising tone “Mamoon…” … she gave me a glum look and … “main so jaaoongi … I will go to sleep” … I couldn’t help bursting out … et tu mamoon?  The transparent-ation is complete …