Skip to main content

Revisiting an old love: Blossom Book House

This afternoon, I went to Blossom Book House on Church Street after a gap of some months. Felt like visiting an old love, but it was an effort to rekindle the old magic. Has the book-buying experience changed? Or have my circumstances changed? 

Blossom Book House, Church Street, a sanctuary once, an old love now

I first discovered this bookstore about 13 years ago, in 2002, when it was a small one-room store in Brigade Gardens. When I was working as a sub-editor in a newspaper on MG Road, I'd end up at Blossom during the famed 5-6 pm 'thindi' break. Blossom was a sanctuary for me. I didn't have too much money to spend, but would end up buying a nice second-hand one for about Rs 50, and come back to the desk, in time for the post 6 pm rush. Work on the State Desk was dull and dreary sometimes, and we had to edit poorly written copies or make page after page on old systems that often hung! And the endless translations from Kannada to English. Going to Blossom became a ritual, a bright spot in an otherwise dull day.

I discovered several authors, revisited old favourites and generally enjoyed taking a deep breath, and smelling the smell of old books stacked haphazardly.

But today, I realised that the book-buying experience has changed. Thanks to social media and access to so much information online, I realised I have forgotten the joy of serendipity. What it feels like to discover an author...What it feels like to buy a book 'just like that'...Today, I whip out my smartphone and look for lists. Wishlists on ecommerce sites, Booker lists, FB pages of famed authors, New Yorker, the Guardian website. Not that we didn't access to the Internet in 2002/2003. Just that we didn't have smartphones, apps, social media, sample pages...whole new game.

So, today, when I looked at stacks of 'The Year of the Runaways', I felt nothing. Because I already knew it was written by Sunjeev Sahota; I have read his interviews, and I know why it is displayed prominently. The Booker. The Indian-Origin. 

Today, going to Blossom is the cool thing to do. People get self-conscious as they carry baskets of books, go to the billing with their stacks and look around as if to say, "See, have been to Blossom! And see, that big bag of books is mine!"

Anyway, am drifting. I wanted to linger on and just browse, but unfortunately, I already knew I'd gone there to pick up Anjum Hasan's 'The Cosmpolitans', an invite to the book launch of which stared at me on my FB wall. I went in, looked at the new Salman Rushdie title, the Anuradha Roy title...but because I had already decided it was Anjum's book I wanted to buy, I didn't linger on. Was it because it was no longer a sanctuary from dreary work that I didn't linger on? Was it because I didn't have the time for serendipity? 

I am yearning for that aha! moment, when I randomly walk around, pick up a book, come back home and find that this was the one I had been waiting for! Maybe I should just give my old love a little more time. 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Walking down Fleet Street

One of London's most iconic streets, if you are a literature lover or a journalist or anyone who has anything to do with words. That's Fleet Street for you. The St Bride's Church, designed by Christopher Wren, located on this street has a lot of history associated with it. It is called the Jounalists' Church because of its location. Some of London's oldest papers were born on this street. When we walked into St Bride's, it was all quiet. We were the only visitors and the place was being renovated. Yet there was a free exhibition on. We enjoyed looking at old newspaper extracts, the history of the Church, clippings of how the Church was bombed during the WW II, how it was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt etc. It was next door to this Church that the first printing press in London started to function as well. Our second stop on Fleet Street was the pub that came with many recommendations in books such as the Lonely Planet. The debate continues on whether...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not worth losing a life over

(This post has been published in unboxedwriters.com. Here:  http://unboxedwriters.com/2014/11/not-worth-losing-a-life-over/  )  This piece has also since been published in The New Indian Express L osing a wicket is a far far better thing to strive for. No batsman would say that under normal circumstances, but given Phil Hughes' death, he would certainly say that.  The sight of a fast bowler tearing into a batsman has been one of cricket's most romanticized images, especially in the pre-helmet era. It was a test to the batsman's technique and mental make-up to duck a bouncer or take one on and dispatch it to the fence. Some of the most celebrated tales in cricket come from anecdotes where batsmen have withstood or batted on in spite of a broken nose or a jaw, samurai-like. It is also very macho, I guess, for both players and spectators to witness such episodes involving sweat, and blood, in some cases. Almost all modern-day sports are civilized and evolved ver...
1 comment
Read more

Remember Sadanand Vishwanath?

I write this as I watch the post-lunch session of the first Ashes Test 2017 at the Gabba. Watching it on Sony Six with the Channel 9 line-up of commentators (plenty of flak for that line-up, of course), my mind goes back to the Benson & Hedges series of 1985-86. I was too young to remember much, but certainly remember the Audi car that Ravi Shastri won. That was also the first time that DD telecast the Channel 9 feed -- I know now not then. I only remember the famous animated duck walk past the screen as the batsmen walked back to the pavilion. That series saw the emergence of a young, dashing wicket-keeper who kept the chatter going behind the stumps -- Sadanand Vishwanath. A Google News search told me what's up with him now. Here's a link: http://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/vishwanath-seeks-to-live-cricket-again/article20628906.ece
Post a Comment
Read more