Warm, sweaty and irritable. That is what I
was when I came across this gem of a stall. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let me rewind and start from the beginning.
Technology and I don’t seem to get along
these days. My camera got stolen, my music system’s on the blink, my laptop’s
keyboard has stopped working… even the goddamn clock in my room has stopped
running. So when my phone started acting up one day after it came back from the
workshop, it took all of my self-restraint (and my sister constantly reminding
me that my phone cost a bomb) to stop me from smashing it with a sledge hammer.
Instead, I wrote a very nasty letter to Sony India Pvt Ltd, and lo behold, they
responded! Called me up to say that they were very sorry, and begged me to come
to their workshop again.
It so happened that Urmi had stayed the
night, so the next morning, the two of us went off to the workshop, which, I
swear on Tandoori Chicken, is located in a place that God is seriously
considering to turn into an extension of Hell – Laxmi Nagar. Narrow, dingy
lanes, traffic everywhere, constantly being assaulted by a hundred horns by
frustrated cars, autos, bikes and yes, even trucks, trying to navigate through
a slew of humanity – though to be fair, the canine and the bovine world were
also quite well represented… well, you get the idea.
Funnily enough, when we reached the area,
it was quite deserted, relatively speaking, of course. What I mean is that a
million people weren’t trying to kill each other by running over each other.
And we were quite lucky to get into the workshop early, and we were treated
quite well. And then, while the waiting was happening that we, our throats
parched after a night of boozing, decided to nip down to the nearby juice shop
and have a glass each. And that’s when all hell broke loose.
In the 20-odd minutes that we were inside,
what seemed like the entire population of Australia (with New Zealand and most
of South America also thrown in for good measure) descended upon Laxmi Nagar.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that it took us half an hour just to reach the
juice shop, a mere 100 metres away. And that’s when we saw the beauty… a man
with a rickety stall, selling…books.
He had neatly arranged the books into 4
categories – new releases, bestsellers, Indian bestsellers and assorted books.
Each came with their own fixed price – the new releases were for Rs 150,
bestsellers for Rs 100, Indian bestsellers for Rs 80 and the assorted books for
just 20 bucks.
The books were a combination of pirated,
second hand and defected copies, but no book was in an outright bad condition.
There were all sorts there – M&Bs, John Grishams, abridged versions of
classics, even a couple of books in a foreign language (German, says Urmi). And
that’s when we found it. A cookbook, with its cover ripped off but otherwise in
excellent condition. And what a cookbook it was! It had recipes for everything
from cheesecakes to smoked lamb steak, with quite a few cocktails thrown in for
good measure. We didn’t waste any time; all we needed to do was to look at each
other and we knew we wanted the cookbook. And that’s when we found the other
wonder.
A book of assorted stories by Guy de Maupassant.
For 20 frigging bucks. In mint condition. A book thicker than my arm (through
admittedly, that’s not very hard). I fell in love immediately. I opened my
mouth and no sound came out. Urmi had to pay for it, I was so dumbstruck. And
just like that, that shitty, shitty day turned into a good day. And I got my
first copy of Guy de Maupassant’s short stories.
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