what a saturday !! perfect..12/24 spent sleeping..glorious..i got up at 5 in the evening..with an SMS on my cell phone asking me to go on a search mission. The task was to find the ever elusive, alluring, "Pachchatar lakh ki dakaiti" by "Surendra Pathak". For the lesser armed junta out there, this is a hindi novel by a hindi writer, apparently a major hit in the more hindi speaking parts of India. I was jolted out of sleep when saw the title. I blinked, and blinked,  and then laughed for a full five minutes imagining myself asking the shop keeper to give me "Pachchatar lakh ki dakaiti".

But reality is harsh. I went out from Crosswords to Odesseys to small book shops, but alas, I could'nt find it. One of the guys had an english translation of the same, "Sixty Lakhs Robbery", with a very graphical front cover of a saree clad women, a heavily moustached man and some blood. Picture this.. the original hindi book costs Rs 60 and the english translation costs Rs 120. Double the price, half the fun, quipped my friend.

I was troubled by the disinterest shown by book sellers towards hindi books. When I asked for Hindi section, I was either shown a tattered pile of old books or was directed to some adhyatmic stuff or shown the door. When did Sheldon, Grisham,  replace premchand, chauhan, 'dinkar' ? And I slept all through! The fact remains that I coudn't find the book.