ON SALE: A pirated copy

CHENNAI: If you still want to know how `Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life', head to your nearest pavement bookseller. Except in the pirated version, she's `Opal Meht'.

Keeping her company is another controversial book, Dan Brown's `The Da Vinci Code'. You may have to wait a few more weeks to watch Tom Hanks star as Robert Langdon with a strange hairstyle, but at the small cost of Rs. 60 and a few spelling mistakes, you can read the original story that spawned an entire industry and several headlines.

A knack for knowing what is in the news and some pretty demanding customers helps this business, besides prices that are a fraction of the original cost. And this is the season of controversial books.

Buzz comes in handy

The buzz about The Da Vinci Code has helped Kumar, a pirated bookseller at a particularly industrious spot on Mount Road. Usually he sells 3-4 books, but in the last two days, he has sold over 10 books a day.

The other booksellers near a subway have not been so fortunate, though they still sell 3-4 copies of the bestseller every day. The prices range from Rs. 60-70.

They all have copies of `The Man Behind the DaVinci Code — The Unauthorised Biography of Dan Brown though there hasn't been any takers for this so far.

`Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden came into stock a week ago but only one seller had made a sale.

Other favourites with book pirates include the Harry Potter series, which is still in demand. The pirated version of The Half-Blood Prince is available at Rs. 80, nearly one-tenth the price of the original hardbound copy.

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