Monday, May 10, 2004

Visitig a second hand book shop in Vizag

"Sir, what book are you searching for?"

It was the shopkeeper of the second hand bookshop (a misnomer, the books must have changed many hands)in Vizag where I had been browsing for more than half an hour. It was my friend's suggestion that I visit the road next to HSBC Vizag where there are a couple of old book shops.

Sadly Vizag's idea of second hand books mean used copies of college text books and the ubiquitous MS Office for dummies kind of books. They hardly had any English fiction, leave alone non fiction. There was one Nevil Shute novel, which unfortunately was in Norwegian or whatever language. Some drunken sailor must have bought it thinking it was English and when sober must have thrown it out, realising he could not read it.

So when this guy asked, I replied "Do you have English Novels"?

He stared blankly for a minute and then smiled "One mniute Sir". He delved into a hidden shelf and took out a book and asked me with a smirk , "Books like this Sir"?

It was a book called "The Strange but True facts of Sex, with illustrations".

1 comment:

tris said...

I was pissed because Alwar did not even ask me what book I wanted!