A small haul at Abids … 2 Parkers & a new writer and the 'almost' new Rushdie book ...

A couple of weeks ago, on one such day, Vinod had called late in the evening.  There was some general chit chat and news that Srikanth, one of our Abidian book-hunter friends, is getting married in October and could I come to Abids next Sunday so that we could all meet before Srikanth gets busy.  It was a damn good idea and as it is I wasn’t visiting Abids on Sundays as regularly as I wanted to.  I wanted to buy refills for my two ball-pens and so, I thought I could make a quick dash to J K Pens at Abids and also see if they have anything new in fountain pens.  So, off I went to Abids last Sunday morning. 

Vinod had already reached and had found a book.  We met at the corner, he showed me his first catch of the day, and told me Umashankar and Srikanth wouldn’t be joining us that day.  So, we talked and walked along, looking at books piled and stacked and arranged.  I looked at a couple of books, but not strong enough nibbles.  Then we went for chai and biskits and spent half an hour talking books and discussing new and soon-to-released books, looking forward especially to the release of Salman Rushdie’s new novel, The Golden House (this one makes an appearance later in the narrative … ).  Refreshed now, we resumed our search.  The usual Rs.20 and Rs.30 piles near the Irani hotel were missing and I was disappointed.  We ambled along.  

I saw Keigo Higashino’s Malice, which I urged Vinod to pick up.  He did.  The search was getting a bit desultory for me.  Then I perked up and saw the other Rs.20 pile near Bata.  This pile had given me five good books last time.  I dove in.  I found a Robert Parker title immediately … Hush Money.  I had this title, but I picked it up anyway.  I had infected some of my colleagues with the book-bug recently and a free gift of a book would be a good incentive to help the bug burrow in deeper.  Soon I found another Robert Parker title … Thin Air.  I don’t have the book, but I think I read the e-book.  I was amused and mused wryly … there was time some years ago when I searched and searched hungrily for Robert Parker titles at Abids and never got a single one.  I had paid comparatively large sums at Best Books sales couple of years ago for Robert Parker books.  And now, I was getting them for Rs.20 each!  Ah … well …

I searched some more and found a couple of titles, but I chose to retain the book that looked promising … Earl Emerson’s The Portland Laugher.  I hadn’t heard the name of the writer.  ‘A Thomas Black Mystery,’ it said on the cover.  A new detective?  I’d need to find out more.  I paid for these three books and looked around.  Vinod seemed to have sauntered off.  

I entered the nearby complex where there were more stacks and shelves and piles.  I looked around.  Books were there all right, but there was also a strong stench emanating out of some filthy bathroom.  It was getting unbearable.  But I sort of stayed back and went to the shelf at the corner where they usually stack ‘new’ books.  The books are wrapped in transparent plastic, so I presume they are new, but I strongly feel that they are some sort of surplus stock.  And I saw a hardback copy of Salman Rushdie’s new book The Golden House, nicely sitting there, looking all new and shiny and wrapped in plastic!!  I was astonished … really.  I had checked some 3-4 days back (remember, all this is happening on September the 10^th) and the book was supposed to release in the second week of September, but one could pre-order it.  And the online price for the hardback copy was Rs.500 or so and this chap was selling it for Rs.300!  I was hesitant.  I had heard of and also seen (and also have) pre-release proof copies of books finding their way into the grey market before the actual release of the book.  I wasn’t sure what was inside, and I couldn’t check the book because once I opened the cover I had to buy it.  I didn’t want to take the risk.  Maybe I should have bitten the bait.         

I didn’t, and that’s what matters.  I came out and it was time to leave.  Vinod had disappeared or so it seemed.  I walked down to J K Pens and saw that it was closed.  Oh maan!  Usually they are open on Sundays.  Now I have to make another trip to Abids for the refills.  Disappointed, I drifted on towards GPO to see if I could locate Vinod.  Aah … there he was … haggling with a bookseller.  And he already had a stack of books under his arm.  Good haul, eh Vinod?  I said my goodbyes and went to catch a bus home.  Oh God … that was a nightmare … afternoon-mare?  Autowalas wouldn’t go or were charging both arms and legs.  Only way was to hop my way home … waited for half an hour till I got a bus to Secunderabad … again, disinterested autowalas there too … no choice … from there another bus to Tarnaka … and for the final lap, found a share-auto that was going my way … an reached home hot, sweaty, and ravenously hungry …   

Lines on land and water: Reading Pradeep Damodaran's Borderlands

I was browsing for travel books.  And I like theme-based travel chronicles, which means I was specifically looking for books where the writer travels to and stays at different places, and her/his objective, observations, and writing have a common thread that binds the book together … books like Chasing the Monsoon, Finding Fish, Chai, Chai, Hot Tea across India, Falling off the Map … I enjoyed reading these books … and so, here I was, reading blurbs and brief descriptions of travel books and I came across Pradeep Damodaran’s Borderlands: Travels across India’s Boundaries … I read what was written in and around the book … mmm … Pradeep Damodaran goes to the country’s border towns and some far flung islands forming the boundaries of the country … some bustling, some sleepy, some desolate, some neglected … these towns and villages … Pradeep Damodaran spends over a year and a half travelling to these places, ‘experiencing life in far-flung areas that rarely feature in mainstream conversations’ … very very interesting, I thought … just the kind of book I was looking for …

So, when the book arrived, I looked at the contents. I had heard the names of only three locations among the ten places that Pradeep Damodaran had visited.  I had heard of Minicoy as being part of the Lakshadweep islands, but knew nothing about it, and so I started with Minicoy.  It is obvious that Pradeep Damodaran found in Minicoy an island so captivating, its history so engrossing, and its people so charming, that the Minicoy chapter (after I’d read the whole book) appears closest to the author’s heart.  The wooded paths where Pradeep Damodaran cycles along from the resort to the village, the serenity that he experiences, the beaches, and most of all, the many people that he visits and talks to are all so beautifully described.  Minicoy, in a sense, is where India comes closest to Maldives, our Indian Ocean neighbor. One of the ironies that Pradeep Damodaran discovers is that Minicoy is closer to Maldives that to India, not only geographically.  Minicoy has more in common with Maldives – language, religion, history, food habits – and at one point of time, was a part of the Maldivian kingdom, and for a number of years after India’s independence Minicoyans used to regularly travel to Maldives and there was direct trade between Minicoy and Maldives.  Of course, it is been officially stopped now.  It is fascinating actually, this part where the inhabitants on this side of the border have more in common with the people across the border than with the vast and populous hinterland.  But borders are always shadow lines.  

This line across the waters is really something.  We go over to the other side of the ocean and bump into Campbell Bay.  Campbell Bay, part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, despite its indigenous people, is a settlers’ island.  It was in the seventies that the Indian government decided to populate this southernmost Indian island by clearing out the jungles, and to secure the country’s borders.  Ex-servicemen were encouraged to migrate to this island and were given incentives like free land, money, free rations, etc.  Most of them gladly came over, cleared the land, tilled their farms, and settled here though there is still a lot of jungle out there.  It is like a mini India tucked away in the Indian Ocean.  The original inhabitants, people belonging to the Great Nicobarese and Car Nicobarese tribes, live in their original villages.  Some of them have become part of the ‘mainstream,’ but some like the Shompens lived in the jungles and carried on like their ancestors.  The tribespeople resemble Indonesians and Malays more than mainland Indians. And not surprisingly, Campbell Bay is closer to Indonesia than to India, and so forms a sort of border with Indonesia. 

These two places, similar in many ways, and also diametrically opposite in many other ways, intrigued me so much that I read these two chapters more than twice already.  Minicoy, I want to stay on; Campbell Bay, I want to visit. 

 

There are a number of things about borders that Pradeep Damodaran observes and describes, but I don’t want to get into all the details here. Suffice to say that there are a number of distasteful things happening at a number of places, some outright revolting.  At some places Pradeep Damodaran was able to cross the border and go across to the town on the other side of the border, that is, in the foreign country.  His walks in the mornings in Phuentsholing in Bhutan across Jaigaon are the most soothing to the mind; and I am sure, he found his boozing visits in the evenings also relaxing.  His visit to Tamu in Myanmar across Moreh brings out this wry remark … “As had been my experience with all the other border towns I had visited so far the other side seemed greener and more prosperous …”  Tells a lot about our border management, no?

And in case you visit Moreh in Manipur on the Myanmar border, don’t be surprised to see a large Tamil population there … or a great number of Punjabis in Campbell Bay, the southernmost island town of India … or thriving Rajasthanis in Jaigaon … ah, well, there are more stories and surprises in this book … about our peoples, their movements, our border towns, their border towns, our joint borders …

While reading this book, I felt that each town or island appears in a different ‘light.’   Minicoy appeared to me as this place full of trees where sunlight filters through the leaves creating dappled shades … Campbell Bay appeared to be bright and sunny and hot … Jaigaon on the Bhutan border appeared cool, rain-kissed and drizzly and just about bright … Moreh on the Myanmar border and Dhanushkodi on the southern peninsular tip closest to Sri Lanka were dark for me … Raxaul on the Nepal border appeared suffused with dirty polluted light (it is so dirty and dusty that Pradeep Damodaran says Raxaul was the most disheartening of all the border towns)  … The Bangladesh border was feebly lit and watery … and so on.  Is it Pradeep Damodaran’s light-changing prose or my fertile imagination?