I am told that my parents used to read me stories from Amar Chitra Katha along with pictures when I was young as one and a half years old.
From those Ramayana and Mahabharata stories, I have never looked back. Graduating from Tinkle to Enid Blyton to Hardy Boys to Sidney Sheldon to Arthur Hailey to Roald Dahl and lots more, reading has been almost the ONLY good habit I have, so to say. Every time, I still go to a book shop, I can spend hours just browsing through the books, just flip through them, read that occasional description and finally give in to the temptation and buy some!
Thankfully the passion shared by my family in my years till now continues, because Mayunk loves these printed words equally! Before I moved to Bangalore post shaadi, he had told me about this awesome bookshop in the city called Blossoms. He said if you really want to visit a book shop-- go beyond the Crosswords and Landmarks—Blossoms is a must-do. It was quite some time before we finally made our first trip there, and trust me, he wasn’t exaggerating!
Blossoms, is located on Church Street, Bangalore, which is basically the lane parallel to the famed M G Road and a foodies paradise too. Just for extra gyaan, Church Street has some of the best restaurants in Bangalore (how can I resist talking about food! hehe!). You will see a simple board blue on white saying Blossoms – 10% to 90% discount on all types of books and they are not kidding when they say that.
Blossoms is in three levels, ground plus two floors, each floor housing different varieties of books. You will find academic, computer, self help, astrology, language etc kind of books on the ground floor where the billing is also done.
First floor has all the fiction in the world. From the most common Sidney Sheldons and John Grishams to the classic Ayn Rands and George Orwell to the short stories by O Henry and Guy De Maupassant, you will find everything here. You will find stories of best made movies in their original form and you might just come across that rare hard bound novel you were looking for. There are just rows and rows of books all over the place. They are divided first by their genre and then by authors. You can just forget rest of the world and keep moving between lines of books of every size!
Second floor has lot of autobiographies and self help books as well and is an area that I haven’t spent any time as yet. The shop also sells basic stationary in terms of pen and wrapping papers, some CD covers etc.
The specialty of the shop is that they sell a lot of second hand books in very good condition with decent discounts. You will rarely find any dirty or tattered books being sold out here. There are an equal number of new books which also they manage to sell cheaper than most other regular book shops. I bought a set of two volumes of O Henry’s short stories for 200 bucks which was being sold at Rs.250 at other places.
The owner is supposed to be a real book lover and is known to give away books for free if he feels someone wants it badly enough. There will be no pesky sales guys hovering over your head. But if you need help looking for something in particular, someone is there just a voice away. They accept cash and credit cards.
You know when something is made and maintained out of passion rather than purely for business and Blossoms give you just that feeling.
So go on, engulf yourself in the magic of words, the fragrance of pages turned, the mystery of the pages that are yet to be turned, the fantasies yet to be experienced.
Blossom with books!