The bliss of a book buff
ramanujam January 15th, 2006
After much hype and kicking off the lazy geek in me, I made my way to the 29th Chennai book fair conducted by the Book sellers and publishers association of South India in Quaid-a-Milleth women’s college, Oops!!! The college girls were given a holiday and no sort of entertainment from that side but still there are oodles and piles of books providing great distraction for any middling book buff like me. I am no statistician but I could say that there were more than a hundred stalls pertaining to various facets ranging from isha yoga to Yann Martel.
They have also has put up refreshment stalls meaning that you will have to satisfy your hunger apart from quenching your literary thirst. The only thing which I could do in the bounds of the fair was window shopping as they sold only authenticated books on MRP rates providing a meager discount for name sake. I never procure books, I generally borrow them and that too original books I’m totally sick of them, sorry the cost. I loitered around for about two hours before entering the real action i.e. the second sorry seventieth hand books and other pirated books sold outside on the platforms. It also doesn’t require an entry fee!!
I mainly went there in search of the book “The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams”, after searching for half an hour I found that book but shit, the whooping cost (Rs.495) tabooed me from buying this book. If any body wants to gift me something, please note down ;), and don’t wait everyday is a birth day for me. Nothing special about this about but many said it’s a nice book and I left out little dejected. If you have the liberty of buying whatever you want (pockets stuffed fully with money) then you are the king.
Then I entered the main arena, I mean the platforms .My friend said that there are a lot of books available outside and it is unnecessary for going inside for the window shopping. I thought of buying a lot of books but under the scorching and that too after two hours walk it was very irksome searching for your fauvorites. Almost all the best sellers are available at throwaway prices (The Da Vinci code costs Rs.300 inside and an exact replica is available outside for Rs.50).
Finally I got these books
i) Digital fortress by Dan brown –bought this because I loved the Da Vinci code very much.
ii) The sky is falling by Sidney Sheldon
iii) Barron’s preparation guide – an impulse stimulated me telling me to do something useful.
iv) The hollow man by Dan Simmons – bought this bcos I got this for 10 rupees, searched a massive lot and picked this one owing that there was something special in the name (best among the worst)
v) The green salamander by Pamela Hill –same reason as above
My searches for a book by one of my fauvorite authoress Agatha Christie also turned out to be in vain and this proclivity because I felt great after completing two of her whodunits in the last week, really stupendous!!! Despite having the money I missed some of the books. One night @ the call center by Chetan bhagat (I enjoyed five point someone very much), chicken soup for the soul (bcos I read a little bit of it in the past and was very interesting), the monk who sold his ferrari, some books by Paulo Coelho and Sidney Sheldon and so on. I think i should go for a hunt tomorrow as the fair concludes the day after and get some of the missed ones.
P.S: I have bought them but the query lies in when I am going to chew them all 
also I have the books of this semester weighing more than 3 kgs each which I brought home with much difficulty lined up and I have no idea of hooking on to them in the near future.
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