Damaru Lal Bhandari

Kathmandu, February 6:

Old habits refuse to fade away. And, so do books — especially in Valley with bibliophiles and bookworms aplenty. The culture of buying and selling old books is fast gaining momentum here. To witness this growing trend, just be outside the premises of the Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation building at New Road.

“I have been buying and selling old books since 1997,” said Arjun Khatri, who owns an old book stall. He, however, has to be always alert as civic staffers very often swoop down on his roadside stall, seizing whatever they can lay their hands upon.

And rummaging on the pile of books, one is bound to hit upon books from all over the world. One can find books on baby names to geometry books printed in the former USSR. Consider the list: “Lenin In Siberian Exile: Records, Documents and Recollections,” published by Progress Publishers, which stopped publishing long ago; and “Japanese Entry Into Indian Industry.” People cannot take their eyes off the ‘Collected Works of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels’ published as far back as 1859 by the same Progress Publishers. While the romance with Communism is dwindling, depending, of course, on which part of the world you are in, the two writers are very much alive in their books, it seems. One cannot, however, imagine how books like the “Transit of Landlocked Countries” (Nirala Publication, New Delhi) and “Jail Journal” of BP Koirala end up in the piles.

The collection is admirable. If you are in a hunt for a chic name for your baby beyond what they say as ‘Jennifer’ and ‘Jason’, these people have “An Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby”. The authors and publishers being Rosenkrantz and Satran and St Martin Press, respectively. There is a serious and scholastic yarn too. Consider this: Medieval India by Majumdar Raychaudhuri and Datta McMillan and published by St Martins Press, New York that takes you back to the swinging sixties. One can also come across publications that have listed e-mail addresses of various organisations. “That’s why it is worth rummaging through the pile,” said Binod Kapali,

a bibliophile. Ramesh Katuwal, who walked away with Venkataramani’s “A History

Of Sikhs — 1839-1874”, shared the same view.