Indian Readers discussion

I used to spend a lot on books till a couple of years ago. My maternal home as well as my current residence is full of books, so much so that books are underfoot in each and every room and corner. Finally my frustrated husband bought me an E Reader in the futile hope that my book buying spree will end. But unfortunately for him, he didn't get the expected results though the number of books I buy are drastically reduced.
I am keen to know whether I am the only one who is a shopaholic when it comes to books, or are there others like me?

Maybe foodstalls and Bookshops are the only two shops that I have visited in last few months(or most often in last few years). It is irresistible when we see books that might be cheaper than elsewhere. I am buying second hand books nowadays, so that lets me buy more books(also have a fetish for yellow-stained paged books).

For me money doesn't matter as long i know that the book is worth having in your personal collection :)

Money has always been a constraint for me.i would think twice before buying anything.but when it comes to books i will just think if i have the money with me and go ahead and buy it.I had shifted to Second hand books(mostly) a long time ago.almost 4-5 years ago..I would not be wrong if i said that more than half of my collection comes from a single book fair.it is a book fair which runs throughout the year!!! i will visit it 2-3 times a year and i will buy around 20 books every time i go there.which helps me to bargain with them and get 2-3 books for free..I miss that book fair in Trichy so much:(

even I used to buy second hand books whenever possible (not pirated ones, real second hand ones), but here I dont have such opportunity and have to buy whatever I want online as bookshops here give 0% discount and do not have much of a collection.

yeah.i knew that will be the case with me once am in Bangalore.so i bought around 40 novels when i left Trichy , which keeps me going.. don't know what will happen once am done with those...

Vinoth wrote: "yeah.i knew that will be the case with me once am in Bangalore.so i bought around 40 novels when i left Trichy , which keeps me going.. don't know what will happen once am done with those..."

In Bangalore try out Blossoms book shop in Church street. They sell both second hand and new books too. It is a 3 storey jungle of books(mostly used books) and is cheaper. They give discount on new books as well. Sometimes more than flipkart.

Aravind wrote: "Vinoth wrote: "yeah.i knew that will be the case with me once am in Bangalore.so i bought around 40 novels when i left Trichy , which keeps me going.. don't know what will happen once am done with ..."

Thanks Aravind.will do that..

I spend regularly on books. Almost every Sunday I go to Crossword and do not come out empty handed.!!
I also prefer to buy books online from flipkart and some others, as they offer a good discount on each and every book.
After joining the goodreads, my books buying spree has god a boost as I keep on reading the reviews and keep buying the books :)

I can't resist myself when it comes to buying books. Even if I have no intention of buying one I usually buy one every time I visit a book store. After finding Blossoms here in Bangalore I started buying the second hand books but it so happened that rather than buying 1 new book I find myself purchasing 4 second hand books. So much for saving some money! Now with a JustBooks membership the book shopping has come down to certain extent.

I used to spend a lot on books b4...but now i have wisened up..thankfully hve the office library which helps me keep from buying books....but nevertheless i do buy from time to time....

150 rupees per month! Just Books. Call me cheap but it works for me! I don't think twice about the price anymore. The Secret, Steve Jobs by Isaac, Nigella Lawson's books... the works. :D

I dont have specific amount as such.. Whenever I go to bookstores I ended up buying minimum one or two books though I buy mostly online.. :).. Approximately last year I spend more than 5k on the books.. :)

yes, Anbu, even my amount comes close - around 500 per month, sometimes even upto 2000 at a go (especially when I cant resist those costly picture encyclopedias for gautham)

i steal books from libraries!!

Maxwin wrote: "i steal books from libraries!!"

wow...grt work..hw does it feel?

The Book Thief! :P

R. Sun Moon wrote: "The Book Thief! :P"

i think there is a book by that name...

Vinoth wrote: "R. Sun Moon wrote: "The Book Thief! :P"

i think there is a book by that name..."

That's what i meant...

oh. am a bit slow!!! put up with me....

i used to spend a lot of money on books ...i m fond of having collection of different type of books with me ...one more thing i want to add here i never sold a book
thats why i have a huge collection of books with me.

I mostly buy second hand books if i want to read it once...Blossoms in blore is one gud place...
some books which i want to keep ...mostly the ones connected to Mahabharatha and Lord shiva my current passions i collect..
Currently trying to collect the whole of the ramayana series of Ashok Banker :)
Well my average spend is Rs 500 per month...but this month it has been about RS 3000...:)

too damn much.about a grand a week

@neha only this month ...i was too tempted

@sampath..yeah i am ,i feel jubiliant after stealing every one of the book...

Anjali wrote: "I mostly buy second hand books if i want to read it once...Blossoms in blore is one gud place...
some books which i want to keep ...mostly the ones connected to Mahabharatha and Lord shiva my curre..."

Blossoms is an absolute favourite :)
I have Ashok Banker's Ramayana in my to-read list this year. It is worth the effort right?

And btw, welcome to IR :)

@ parikhit ...yes ...i have been saving to buy this set together ,,,hopefully will buy it around June :)
I am a fan of Indian Mytho...plus i luv his(ie Asok Bankers) style ...

Anjali wrote: "@ parikhit ...yes ...i have been saving to buy this set together ,,,hopefully will buy it around June :)
I am a fan of Indian Mytho...plus i luv his(ie Asok Bankers) style ..."

If you like Indian Mythology you should totally read this book, Yuganta: The End of an Epoch, if you haven't already. We read it as a part of our group reads last year. Its fabulous.

@ parikhit ...do u have a copy ...if u r coming for the meet can u give me this book pls pls

Anjali wrote: "@ parikhit ...do u have a copy ...if u r coming for the meet can u give me this book pls pls"

I have an e-book no hard-copy :( It was very hard to find the book and I was desperate to read it so that I got the e-book. This is the link if e-books are fine with you,

http://gyanpedia.in/Portals/0/Toys%20...

@parikhit thanks so much for the copy ...i luv mahabharata centric books my current list goes like this...1. Mahabharata by C. Rajagopalachari

2. Yajnaseni by Pratibha Ray (original in Oriya) – reading currently

3. Yuganta by Irawati Karve –@thanks to @parikhit
...
4. And Now Let Me Sleep by P.K. Balakrishnan –

5. After Kurukshetra by Mahasweta Devi –

6. Mrityunjaya, the death conqueror: finally found the english version

7. The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni –read really liked it

8. The cult of Draupadi Vol I by Alf Hiltebeitel

9. The cult of Draupadi Vol II by Alf Hiltebeitel

10. The Second Turn by M.T.Vasudevan Nair (original in Malyalam) –

11. Yudhishthir and Draupadi by Pavan K. Varma

12. The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor –

13. Rethinking the Mahabharata by Alf Hiltebeitel>

14. The Mahabharata by Meera Uberoi >

15. The book of Yudhishthir

Bhimsen is for download at goodreads ebook website.

it is supposed to be a sort of a version of Randamoozham by MT Vasudevan Nair in malayalam - its the story of Bhim and his passion for Draupadi

@smitha ...the Yuganta by Irawati Karve link is not working properly ...any chance that u have a downloaded copy that u can email me at anjalirpai@gmail.com

And Thanks i was able to download Bhimsen from goodreads site

"It has been convincingly shown by the late Dr. V. S. Sukhatankar that the
Mahabharata at one time went from the sutas into the keeping of a Brahmin clan named
Bhrigu. This clan took the opportunity to add the stories of its own clan to the
Mahabharata. Fortunately these additions are so crude and so out of context of the
original story that they can be detected easily. This author thinks that not only the
Mahabharata but almost all the literary tradition in Sanskrit passed into the hands of the
Brahmins, who henceforward became jealous custodians of this literature to which they
added from time to time whatever came into their hands. What particular historical and
social conditions made this possible and what the time was when this occurred would be
worth investigating."

I was reading Yuganta from the link provided above, and I was surprised to read this passage provided in the book.Calling Brahmins as 'Jealous Custodians' of this text is being too hard on them.There seems to be a general bias against the Brahmin Community as a whole. Please note that the finger of suspicion is raised on the whole Brahmin Community which I think is preposterous!

Anjali wrote: "@smitha ...the Yuganta by Irawati Karve link is not working properly ...any chance that u have a downloaded copy that u can email me at anjalirpai@gmail.com

And Thanks i was able to download Bhims..."

Well, I downloaded the PDF version from the link and the same has been mailed to you.

@siddharth ...u are a rock star dude ...thanks i did get the copy on email

@Siddharth, I don't think it is too preposterous in any ways - she was only referring to Brahmins that lived in a particular age and were custodians of the so-called sacred text. Most often we don't know the exact names and addresses of the people responsible at that time. So safe to talk of them as jealous custodians.

But it would be preposterous if someone points at me and says am one of those ppl who distorted ancient texts because my parents are brahmins - i would take offense only then! Yes there is of course a lot of bias against the Brahmin community of those ages if you go ahead and try to strip divinity off all the 'sacred' texts. And again the reason (jealousy) might not be entirely true. It would take a great deal of understanding of the evolutory mechanisms of a society to understand why it happened! There isn't one single brahmin priest who scrupulously distorted those epics - it was an inevitable process that happened over thousands of years in thousands of hands. One possible theory why it might have happened can be imagined from Asimov's Foundation novel - where he puts forth a theory of how a technically advanced society tries to preserve its wealth of knowledge under the facade of religion and priests. I believe we were once a technically superior nation and one possible reason behind why the epics were distorted might be that they want to preserve those advances under the facade of 'beliefs' without reason and scare the ppl in the name of god and make them but helpless to follow them. Over a period of time when ppl start questioning those beliefs they will slowly discard them and again go about reinventing the wheel, which i believe is a cycle and should happen from time to time (like once every 10,000 yrs or so)

R. Sun Moon wrote: "@Siddharth, I don't think it is too preposterous in any ways - she was only referring to Brahmins that lived in a particular age and were custodians of the so-called sacred text. Most often we don'..."


I am a firm believer in freedom of speech and I think its a fundamental right of every human being to speak his mind.The point of concern arises where the person in question i.e Dr. V. S. Sukhatankar paints the whoile Brahmin Community with the same brush and which I think is completely rubbish and totally unacceptable. There may have been instances of individual Brhamin Scholars who have distorted the texts for personal gains, but putting the blame on the whole community is wrong. Apart from this, the Dr. alleges that almost every religious text of the Hindus has been 'doctored' by the brahmins.This allegation undermines the faith Hindus have on their Gods and Goddesses and makes a mockery of Hindu Religious structure.

As i said earlier, how much more specific can a person be when he is talking of ppl who lived thousands of years ago?

Dnt we group all ppl together like communists, republicans, nazis, engineers - stereotyping is a way of life and it shudn't be used as a reason for getting agitated only when used for religion/castes. And contrary to ur statement there are hindus who firmly believe the Brahmin community of the past, with the help of doctored religious scriptures have misled our religion and our society into a patriarchal direction from the goddess centric and matriarchic families earlier. So i don't see how addressing one community of ppl within Hindus who lived in the past is going to undermines the faith of all the Hindus. It can be so only if Hindu fundamentalist groups wants to use the sentiment to instigate communal riots. Any other properly-thinking Hindu shudn't take offense at the crime committed by one small community of ppl that lived centuries ago.

I dnt see anything wrong in the statement that every religious text is doctored (for good or for bad) because no one actually possesses the actual manuscripts of our original texts. And knowing human psychology am sure the texts have been tampered at every stage, sometimes by Brahmins, sometimes by Kshatriyas, sometimes by feminists etc. It's kind of foolish thinking that the scriptures haven't really undergone any change and are still available to us in their original form in which they are written. The faith of Hinduism is much more than just these scriptures, how much percentage of Hindus have actually read those texts, at least the interpretations? Ppl here learn to worship god even before they ever hear of our vedas or upanishads or bhagavadgitas or ramayanas or bhaagavathams. The faith is much more than these texts, doctored or otherwise - it is a way of life!

Let's take this discusion offline if interested, as it is kind of off-topic and irrelevant to the topic

yeah, lets create a thread in Debatabase.

We have the discussion thread for this book.. you can have this continue there.. :)

Anjali wrote: "@parikhit thanks so much for the copy ...i luv mahabharata centric books my current list goes like this...1. Mahabharata by C. Rajagopalachari

2. Yajnaseni by Pratibha Ray (original in Oriya) – re..."

My pleasure. Good to hear that you got a copy :)
I have read an extract from C. Rajagopalachari's Mahabharata as a part of school syllabus. If my memory is not failing me it must have been 'The Enchanted Pool'

my goodness, i did not know there are so much works based on Mahabharata. truth be said i have not read a single one of them..

Now I want to read Yuganta more.. Too much work in past month that my reading time reduced drastically.. :(

i have palace of illusions,bhimsen, yuganta parva and yajnaseni now...

Anjali wrote: "i have palace of illusions,bhimsen, yuganta parva and yajnaseni now..."

are the books by Ashok Banker an adaptation of ramayana?? there seems to be 6 books in the series... how good are the books??

Vinoth wrote: "Anjali wrote: "i have palace of illusions,bhimsen, yuganta parva and yajnaseni now..."

are the books by Ashok Banker an adaptation of ramayana?? there seems to be 6 books in the series... how good..."

There are 7 I think. I saw the collection at JustBooks and am planning to read them sometime this year. Anjali mentions they are totally worth the effort :)

@vinoth and parikhit....yes they are totaly worth the effort ....Infact i am saving to buy the whole set ...already overbudget this month...i spent 3000 K ...i want to keep them ...