Jun 07, 2006 05:44 PM
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Blossom at Church Street, Bangalore has quite become my favourite place to wait for my husband.(any married person -female -will appreciate what I mean) We generally go home together after a hard day's work- sometimes after hardly a day's work too(like today when I'm writing this review when I'm actually supposed to be hard at work!) Invariably my dear sweet husband drives up 15 min to half an hour late, so instead of waiting by the roadside(initial days) or exceeding my credit limit at Garuda Mall's varied delights( later days), by mutual agreement, we decided on Blossom as a relatively less-damaging-to-the wallet place.
If he's 15 min late, I get to look up all the old titles, new titles, new prints, old prints of same book, favourite authors, new upstarts, new promising ones. generally imbibe the bookish feel of the place, and breathe in THAT smell that the genuine book lover will understand.
If he's half an hour late, I get to do all this, plus buy the book/books I've been eyeing. In addition to that, I drag him off to look at'his' favourite author/book and spend an additional 10-15 min bonding, by which time, I get him to agree to having dinner out.:)
A win-win-WIN situation, wouldn't you say?
Seriously, Blossom is a lovely place to hang out if you're one of those persons who lovebooks, but do not believe in spending half your salary on the new spanking copies.
You can get those old, much loved copies of the Phantom comics, all the Indrajaal heroes in fact, you get all those original Amar Chitra Kathas with Unca Pai's original illustrations - those beautiful graceful women and chivalrous strong men-(both of which are in rather short supply these days, I think)
You can get that book at Blossom, which your beloved Papa gave you when you were a kid, which you lent to someone nasty who never returned it and which you never been able to find at any of the bookstalls hence. with possibly the same cover, same print, or perhaps you migh find a newer addition.
You get all those Enid Blyton's- well known and lesser known titles, those Edgar Rice Burroughs, those old Mills and Boon authors.
You can also get your Harry Potters and Jonathan Strouds and all the latest titles as also that book which has been pulled off the prominent bookshelves across the country about that girl who got smooched and learnt to live?There are rows of those boring books on every subject under the sun, those slightly better ones on all crafts/hobbies/pastimes. Fiction, non-fiction, autobiographies, travelogues, everything is there in sufficent measure. In early days, everything used to be crammed on the same floor, now its blossomed forth.
The sales girls/boys are very unobtrusive- once they've decided that you are a genuine person and not just out to flick the books into that cavernous bag of yours- and are quite helpful if asked and also pretty clued in about authors/titles/publishers. Of course, sometimes the books might all fall down on your unsuspecting shoulders- the books are arranged vertically one above the other, and if you want one that s at the bottom, you have to do a precarious book-balancing-act, but its all part of the experience.
Quite the best part of this bookstore is that you can read and return the books for a price. Just remember to keep your bill, read the books extra carefully, so you don't spoil the experience for a second customer and if its not one of those keep-at-home-for-repeated-reads-later books, you can return it. There used to be a lot of second hand books once upon a time, but now with all book lovers making a beeline for Blossom(pun intended) the bosses have gotten smart and stock more of newer prints. The old ones still can be got at the end of a particularly tricky balancing act. This really helps you out in the read-and-return category as you only have to dish out smaller amounts.
All said and done, Blossom is much MUCH preferable to those pavement vendors(which are still your best bet when you feel particularly bored and want a book for a day's/night's read and can't be bothered to pay as much as your monthly rent for it) and the Crosswords and Landmarks of the big city which are also lovely places to browse in, but which might not be willing to entertain you on a regular basis without their profit lines being affected a bit for the better!
So folks, take it from someone who's been there, done that, go ahead and get intoxicated by Blossom.
