The booksellers at Karachi’s Sunday book bazaar have become a bit shrewder than they should be. Though the old books they display at the pavements of Karachi’s Saddar area offer a wide range of interests and occasionally you will spot a rare book or two there, the money they ask for such books can be ridiculously high. Anybody with a history of cardiac complaints should avoid treading on these footpaths or, at least, should not dare ask the price of a pale-looking, half-torn book with dog-eared pages that boasts of being published by Naval Kishore, the legendary publisher who published some 4,000 Urdu titles about a century ago, lest he suffers a stroke. Sometimes even a not-so-rare book or magazine is so highly priced that you would prefer to enjoy the mellow winter sunshine — or cool summer breeze — instead, as the case may be.

The old issues of Nuqoosh, one of Urdu’s most prestigious literary magazines, are now priced at around Rs500. When published, back in 1960s and 1970s, one could buy them for a few rupees. Even a decade ago, a copy of Nuqoosh’s old issue could not fetch more than Rs100. The so-called new English titles, usually leftovers of pulp-fiction or copies of a book’s previous edition, imported from Singapore or Hong Kong in containers at throwaway prices since they are presumed to be ‘waste paper’ — are not sold cheaper either. Though I have bought some books, in as good condition as new, on subjects such as linguistics but they do not come cheaper any longer.

The books discarded from libraries of developed countries are another source of these old books. Technically known as ‘weeding’, this practice of discarding the old books has been in vogue since long, as libraries have to make room for new arrivals. The ‘weeded’ books are then shipped as waste paper, intended for recycling. But some shrewd importers sort books and sell them to old book dealers.

In 1990s, the trend had got such a flurry that even the dealers from Punjab used to come to Karachi and buy them by tonnes.

Those were the days to rejoice for book junkies! For an incurable book collector like me those were the days of unlimited joys.

Back in the late 1990s, I bought some very interesting and important books damn cheap. For example, I bought from these Saddar pavements The Mahogany Tree: An Informal History of Punch. Stamped as ‘DISCARDED; FOR SALE’, by National Library of Singapore, the book made an absorbing reading. It is a history of Punch, one of world’s longest running humour magazines, written by Arthur Prager. On April 8, 1992, when the London-based magazine closed, it had completed 151 years of its publication.

Gone are the days when you could tuck under your arm a long sought-after book and walk away after paying Rs30 or Rs40. The exorbitantly high prices of new books have made people turn to these old books dealers and they, too, now understand how much the new edition would cost. A few years ago, I spotted Syed Abid Ali Abid’s Talmeehat-i-Iqbal, a book that explains allusions that Iqbal has referred to in his poetry. I still remember with much sorrow that the gentleman sitting at the pavement asked for Rs50 which I thought was too much and walked away empty handed, recalling that Sang-i-Meel had published the new edition. But when I got a hold of the new edition, it made me feel like crying: it was priced at Rs600. And the problem with the new editions of old books is that if it has been composed anew, it may carry numerous typographical errors. Secondly, first editions have a value of their own. But I had missed a wonderful opportunity. Finally, last year I got the first edition of Talmeehat-i-Iqbal; a colleague happily handed it over to me but only after I had departed with the new edition of Malik Ram’s Tazkira-i-Muaasreen, a voluminous collection of all the four books in the series. Price? Rs1,500 ‘only’.

But when business is down, usually at the end of the month when salaried class is not much willing to spare a few hundred rupees on a book, prices can be low on these roadside ‘makeshift’ bookstalls. Also, when a bookseller does not really understand the value of a rare book or is in need of money you may have a bargain. I do not know what the reason was when a bookseller handed me a copy of an Urdu magazine for just a few rupees but I feel it was worth much more than that. It was the maiden issue of Anjuman-i-Islamia Magazine that I bought. Published in November 1958, the first issue had some invaluable articles, including one on Urdu autobiographies and another on the historic movement of reforming (read: purifying) the Urdu language.

Its editor, Mufti Intezamullah Shahabi, was a scholar himself.

From these pavements, I have got some rare works as old as over 100 years for as low as Rs100 and I would not depart with them no matter how much one is willing to pay. And my joy knows no bounds when a student or a scholar looking for a rare work finds the work in my collection and gets it photocopied. One scholar from Lakki Marwat, a small town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, working on his PhD dissertation on Pandit Ratan Naath Sarshar (1846-1903), had become frustrated for he could not get a copy of Khudai Faujadaar — an Urdu translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote by Sarshar — in any library. His joy told me that it was worth treasuring it for years. I don’t think I can get such a rare book for so low now.

The footpaths of Lahore’s Mall Road, too, are known for old books and on many previous occasions I had found old books in Lahore much cheaper than in Karachi. But my recent visit made me realise that old books in Lahore, too, are now slowly slipping beyond common man’s reach. Though I bought from Mall Road’s footpath The Hand Gazetteer of India, A Dictionary and Glossary of the Koran, and some very old issues of Oriental College Magazine for over Rs500 but I knew that they must have been much cheaper just a few years ago. On my apparent reluctance, the bookseller said with a tinge of grief that old books were much more expensive than they used to be. Maybe, inflation has had its toll. But what can a book junkie do except seeking solace in the thought that now old books are ever more ‘dearer’.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com