A Books Coup

This is a seemingly crazy, eccentric project that my cousin Swaroop is on......the extent people with a passion will go to.

So there's this couple, a brother and sister pair, (both of who never got married), and the brother passed away recently. The sister, who is now 92, decided to sell their collection of books, 6000 books, for a lumpsum amount of 2.5 lakh. And yes, Swaroop bought it. In fact the first time he went to Chennai (from Bangalore) to take them, she started crying saying she's not ready to part with them, and he very generously, and kindly I think, agreed to make another trip. 

The brother Shri Ramaswami was editor of Hindu and the sister was a professor of literature or history, just to give you a range of the interests the books cover. There's everything....cricket, philosophy, history, fiction, national geographics from the 20's, and lots of other stuff. Like Razors edge and Gone with the wind, 1940s prints.

The fact that Ramaswami was a cricket buff was I think , the deciding factor for Swaroop to pick up the collection. (he otherwise will not spend money easily....and that's understating it)

I went to his house yesterday and it looks like this:

There are 81 cartons  !!

He's now into the painstaking but super pleasurable job (if this is sounding near orgasmic..it's meant to ;), of going through the lot...... cataloging them, filling up all possible shelves in the house, buying more book shelves......he says it feels like digging for treasure........and after keeping what he wants, he's going to look for buyers who really care. 

These are all the books on cricket that have already found place in his bedroom shelf. He's got some real precious ones there...I think he mentioned one by Don Bradman, and he's got the entire Wisden collection, right from 1920s ( for those like me, who don't know, this is apparently the Bible of Cricket ).

This was the coup I think, a signed copy by Ranji. ( yes, the one after who the Ranji Trophy is named).

If it wasn't for my recent asthma thingy, I would have taken off work to be part of this project :(

Anyone who might be interested, or know anyone who might be interested, do let me know. He eventually needs buyers, as right now, there's no place for anything else in his house :)