Setting up your own...

When you love books there is nothing like the joy of setting up your own collection. A column of books, neatly stacked up and tucked away in the corner of a room gives a unique sense of delight in addition to the aura it creates. Personal copies are a pleasure. But collections are not raised overnight. It takes time and effort to establish one, for there is no fun in running to the huge bookstore across the street and bagging yourself all the books in the bestsellers column. And there is no point in spending huge money when more economical options are available.

By economical options, I do not mean the ubiquitous pirated copies. I have started to detest the very sight of these books in which, right from the paper quality to the print quality “cheapness” dribbles. It is the same like getting a pirated copy of a movie from the roadside vendor. But with the movies at least there is a chance of getting hold of copies that are almost as good as the original if you know the right guy in Burma bazaar – the mecca of pirated dvds/cds in Chennai. I confidently say this for I recently purchased copies of “Cinema Paradiso” and “12 Angry Men”; movies of excellent print quality for one-tenth of the price. But this could never be the case with a book. A duplicate version could never ever stand up to the original. And this is where second hand book shops come into the picture.

Stacked from the floor to the ceiling, these second hand bookshops are a boon to the book lovers. On my way to Anna Nagar, I chanced upon this small shop in a street in Choolaimedu. Drawn towards it I entered the shop and I will never regret it. For in the last 3 occasions when I have visited that little shop I have bought Khushwanth Singh’s Autobiography “Truth, love and a little malice” and his “Train to Pakistan”, Mahatma Gandhi’s “The story of my experiments with truth”, Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and the recent bestseller, Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” all at great prices and excellent conditions. The best part was I even got a 10% discount for becoming a regular customer. (Okay not really! I befriended the girl in the shop!) If not for second hand bookshops like these, where else would you get a original edition of “The Kite Runner” in superb condition for 75Rs while the new edition costs you 285Rs.( The duplicate copies sell at 80Rs)

And the other day, I was pleasantly surprised to find one of the roadside sellers in Mount Road selling old books. If not sheer luck what else could have got me a copy of the hardbound American edition of Lee Iacocca’s Autobiography for a mere 40Rs!! A reader’s digest special book that commemorated the 75th year of publication by putting together a collection of the best articles and jokes was mine for 10Rs!!

I searched the web for more such shops in chennai and inadvertently ended up reading about Nalini Chettur’s legendary little shop “Giggles” in the Taj Connemara complex. The shop was set up 32 years ago by Nalini Chettur and she seems to be one the most knowledgeable and erudite person in the literary circle. Guys and girls had heaped praises on the shop and its owner. There were even mentions of the ever obliging shop assistant Venkatesan! “The Hindu” had carried an article about this small shop in one of its editions of “The Literary review”.

Now here was a legendary shop at 5 minutes walk able distance from my office and I had never known about it! The very same evening found me at the “Giggles” but it was a slight disappointment to hear from Venkatesan that the shop going through a restacking process. I only got to stand at the entrance of this shockingly small shop as the entire shop was filled with mountains of books. And moreover it was not a second hand bookshop but a normal book shop that also sold very rare books not normally found in most of the other huge bookstores in the city. I left the place promising a visit the coming week.

And now for the most prized book in my possession.

Two days back, I came across a bookshop in the road opposite to Kodambakkam railway station. After going through the stuff in display I was almost about to leave when my eyes fell on a hardbound original American edition of Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel “The Da Vinci Code”. At 25 US dollars the new edition would have burned a hole for more than 1000Rs in my pocket, even with the deflated value of the dollar.

I bought it for one-fourth the price!

A mild drizzle dampens the lawn outside, water trickles down the wall-high glass panes over looking the garden and a cool breeze sails through the house. An old man decrepit with age, wobbles across the hallway and stops near the fireplace and looks loving at his massive bookshelf. Photographs of long dead family members and friends line the wall adjacent to the shelf. With effort he pulls out a carefully maintained copy of a novel titled “Train to Pakistan”. He scratches his old head and tries hard to remember when and where he bought it but gives up as old age has erased most of his memories. He doesn’t remember much about the novel either expect for that it dealt with the Partition of India. He pulls up his arm chair and sits near the fire place.

The fire crackles behind him, keeping the lonely soul warm in the cold night but he is already lost in another world… blissfully.