Sometime back, Sasi bought a copy of the Beatles Anthology. Now that I actually scoured through his archives, and found out the entry that mentions it, I am amazed. He bought it in March 2003. Two years ago!! By some mysterious turn of fate, I had managed to control my buy-mentality for the Beatles Anthology for TWO WHOLE YEARS.

Yes. You do realise that the above sentence means I bought the book finally. I did. But pray pay attention to why I bought the book two years later, and what the mysterious turn of fate (henceforth referred to as the MTOF) was.

See, when he bought it, the book was priced at 1400 rupees, with the exception of a copy in Best Book Stall which managed to stay on its shelf for three whole days. After which, because Ahmedsir had oh-so-kindly priced it at 1100 rupees, some Beatles-hankering soul bought it and went his way. ( How do I know it was three days and not two, you ask? It so happened that the day on which it was put up was a Friday, and I was there at Best Book Stall on that day. By another MTOF, I happened to be there on Saturday too. Not on Sunday, which is the day the bookstall stays closed, because Ahmedsir brings his business to the streets of Abids, Hyderabad on Sunday, for obvious reasons. And when another MTOF led me to the shop on Monday evening, I found the book missing. It was not a pretty experience, let me tell you.) Sasi gave in, sometime later, and decided to buy the book firsthand, for 1400 rupees.

But I, needless to say, am the kind of penny-pinching ne’er-do-well who would rather wait two years, or three, or ten, than spend a thousand and four hundred rupees. By a MTOF, I reasoned, I could spend a thousand or less and be happy the rest of my life. So yes, I refused to buy the book.

Two years go by, with near-misses, and much increase in the dollar-rupee exchange rate, which effectively meant that the price of the Beatles Anthology was now about two thousand rupees. And a couple of months ago, I even discovered a softcover version of the book being sold, at 850 Rupees. Nope, not for me, thank you. It was the hardcover that I sought, and it was the hardcover that I would get, not some wannabe trade edition whose spine will sag after the first reading.

So two weeks ago, I was at IITM, for a one-day trip that had this double-edged singular agenda. Pseudocode follows:

Go to Madras.
Go to IIT.
Go visit Odyssey, if possible.
Participate in Quiz.
Get the Hell Out of Madras.

You notice the subliminal instruction embedded in the code there? The kind of message that pops up only when everything is on schedule and you land up at the right place at the right time and notice that because all times and places were right so far, there should be an attempt to render them wrong, you know, to balance the equation and yadda yadda ohshucksokIwenttoOdyssey, awright? I know its a bad bookshop, the kind of overpriced bastion of capitalism that acts as a Very Powerful Wallet-magnet. I didn’t have anything else to do, so I landed up at that place and I hung around. Just looking around and scoffing at prices. Nothing else. Honest.

In all these bookshops, the music-and-movies section is the worst. This is the section where you’ll have the best books, take my word for it, all those braindead people who serve as assistants there have this irritating habit of filing everything that has a colourful cover in this section, so you will end up finding everything from The Annotated and Illustrated Sherlock Holmes to An Architecture Overview of Gazebos to Excelsior: The Autobiography of Stan Lee. It’s good, you say, to have all interesting books at the same place? Well, there is this slightly flawed system these bookstores follow, called “competitive pricing”, or some shit, where ALL these books automatically get priced twice of what you’re willing to pay for them. Anything – you see it on the shelf in the Movies and Music section – think of a number in your mind, take the book down, look at the price, it will be twice of what you thought it was. Trust me. “Competitive Pricing” is all about prices designed to compete with your mind, and the House is always rigged. Hah!

Yes, back to Odyssey. I spent an hour looking around the bookshop. Went upstairs and saw the mindnumbing section these guys call the Multimedia Zone, where you get shiny CDs of Britney Spears and Ray Charles on the same shelf one behind the other. Came downstairs and browsed through the Mythology section, checking out the new prices of the Bhavan’s books. Then as everything became hazy and shallow, I took a deep breath and walked over to the Movies and Music section.

There was a copy of The Beatles Anthology, of course. In the shiny silvery hardcover edition that I lusted after, and not the paperback version. Just to update my neural response systems about the (undoubtedly) high price, I told myself “2200 Rupees” and opened the book to confirm whether the price had escalated to above the three thousand barrier. The back of the book said “29 pounds”. Which meant that the price was not above 3000.

850.

Blink blink.

“Rs. 850/-” written inside.

Trying very hard to ignore the roaring in my ears, I strode up to this assistant (trying his best to appear busy), and asked him – “Is this 850?” He looked at the book, wet his lips, looked at the back cover, looked inside the book, looked clueless, and then looked at me. By that time, I had taken out my handy little pocket-poker out of my pocket and put it on my face. There was a silent clash of wills – and the guy backed down. I had waited far too long for the book to give in to intimidation. “850 it is, sir”, he said, and I happily pranced over to the counter, and stood in queue behind an agitated lady loaded with fifteen packets of chocolate bars, a couple of game CDs, one wind-chime, a couple of greeting-cards – you know, the usual stuff one buys at a bookshop.

So when my turn came, I had my card ready. “Zip, sign and run” was what I was telling myself, because I was late for the quiz, and I hadn’t had lunch yet. The guy took the book, looked it over and then, proceeded to dash my enthusiasm to itsy-bitsy pieces. “1772 Rs, sir.” “WHAT??? It says 850 right there.” “That’s some kind of mistake, sir, the price is 1772 Rs.” (GAAAAAAAAAAAH!! ) “Well. I had just asked the guy over there, and he assured me it was 850 Rs. Which is why I spent the last fifteen minutes standing in queue, with this book in my hands.” (Trust me, if you have ever lifted the Beatles Anthology, you’ll know what I am talking about.) “Er…wait, sir, I will confirm this.” And off he went with the book. Pretty soon, a game of “pass-the-book” began, as every assistant in the vicinity tries to assist my friggin’ patience. One of them had the bright idea of taking me to their catalogue machine, the computer where you can search for books in stock. He typed “beatles” in, and the list of books rolled out.

There were THREE entries for The Beatles Anthology. THREE!! And the prices were 850, 1530 and 1772 rupees. So this guy turned to me and said, “So you see, sir, the book is 1772 rupees.” I looked a little closer, and noticed the big fat zero that sparkled under the ‘in stock’ column. “How can you be selling a book that you do not have in stock?”, I asked back. Hem and haw. Nosiritislikethatonly and all that. I was pissed. So do I get this for 850 or not? “I can tell you in the evening, sir”, the guy finally ventures. No dice, I am from out-of-town. By this time, I was pissed enough to leave. Slammed the book down on the counter, with a couple of withering remarks about wasting my time with nincompoops, I was about to depart, when

(another MTOF)

This lady chirped in with a “Let me see.” kicking my paternal instincts towards the book into overdrive. “Er, madam, I saw this book first.” I am unashamed when it comes to my rights regarding book-buying. “That’s ok”, she said, looking at the book and the price marked inside, “I can borrow it from you if you buy it, can’t I?” For lack of anything else, I chirped a weak “Yes, of course.” And then she looked at the assistant with a glance that put all my previous glances to shame, and said, “Call the manager. ” The guy gaped and opened his mouth once or twice, as the lady continued to speak loudly about customers being hassled and unfair pricing and all that jazz. After a bit of quick thinking, he gave in and turned to me and said, “It’s ok, sir, you can take it for 850.”

How’s that for a moral victory?

That was not how I got the book finally though. True to my word, I passed it on to the lady, who was very nice and said she was borrowing it because her son was a musician and a big fan of the Beatles. I took her card, and she noted down my address, and said she would mail it over within a week. So off I went to the quiz, and proceeded to come second, on account of having strategically aligned myself with a Great Team. After squirming for five days in torturous anticipation ( “What if the lady was the manager of Odyssey and this was her way of making sure nobody takes the book out of the store?” – the kind of worries that come with being me.), the Beatles Anthology landed up in my office, beautifully packaged and sufficiently alluring enough for me to do a War Dance. A mental one, because there were people around.

Whoever said book-buying is a sedate affair?