Category Archives: shopping

Book hunting and jazz

Yesterday was quite hectic. The day began quite early, as I had to meet Vijay at the Strand sale. Started a little late, so found the peak 9am traffic. Still somehow managed to reach on time.

The Strand sale was again organised at the Chinnaswami cricket stadium like last year, but in a different location. Last time they only had one large hall, with books piled up one on top of the other, so it was a tough job to search. This time though, it was held in 3 halls, so there was enough space to spread out all books. I remember last time I had bought some 4-5 books, all really good deals. But it was disappointing this time, found mostly bestsellers, that too at a very nominal discount. I told them about it, and they asked me to come again in a few days as they were going to get more stock.

Vijay came about 30 mins late, by which time I had more or less scanned the first hall. Then we went through the entire collection together, looking for good bargains. But didn’t really found much to our liking. Still, I ended up buying two. A collection of short stories by Tolstoy, which I bought because I wanted to read Kreutzer Sonata, a story I left unfinished when in school. The other one was Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

Then we went for more book shopping to Blossoms, our evergreen discount store, where one can always find good deals. We spent over an hour going through all the sections. I bought two books on Vijay’s recommendation. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a good book to start on this author. The other one was My Feudal Lord, an autobiography of Tehmina Durrani, wife of one of Pakistan’s highest ranked politicians, in which she writes about the kind of abuse she had to face from her husband.

Then got back to home, where a fabulous lunch was waiting for us. Rested for sometime, while Vijay spent some time online. Then we chatted up for sometime. He invited me to a jazz event at Alliance Francaise in the evening. I thought it would be interesting, so decided to go.

Alliance as usual was buzzing with activity. I was introduced to the director of the Bangalore School of Music (the event’s organiser), who wanted to meet me for some help. We decided to meet and talk at a later time. Then the show was about to begin, so we assembled inside the amphitheatre.

Finally the show started, and the performing duo was welcomed on the stage by the director.
On guitars was well known jazz guitarist Amit Heri, and on the piano was Sharik Hassan, who’s only 22 but already famous for his talent, with performances in India and abroad. They performed several classics, and the show went on for about an hour. Finally I bid adieu to my friend, and started on my way back home, quite tired after the hectic day.

Day out at National Market

My uncle was hosting a lunch for his colleagues from work yesterday. I generally get bored at such times, so I decided to get out of the house for a while. Called up a couple of friends to enquire of their plans for the day. Finally decided to meet up with Shekhar. His sis was flying to Chicago later in the night, so he wanted to buy some dvds to send to his relatives there, and ofcourse get some for himself. He’d never been to the place before, so needed my help to get there. I was myself looking to get some movies to add to my collection.
So off we went, and after some 30 minutes of manouvering through the infamous Bangalore traffic, we finally reached National Market. For people who don’t know much about this place, its a building located in a crowded part of the city, famous for great deals on dvd’s, cellphones and other electronic goods.
After some time browsing around, we got to this shop, recommended to Shekhar by someone. And then began the long but interesting search for titles. We must have searched through hundreds of titles, finally choosing about 20 dvd’s having over 50 titles comprising of both old classics and latest releases, and also some music videos. Got a pretty good bargain, ending up paying just Rs. 70 for each dvd.
Finally came back to Shekhar’s place, and ate a hearty lunch made by his mom. Chatted about some stuff for sometime. The sky started to look really scary…so decided to get back home before the rains started.
Had some thought provoking ideas on the drive back…will be writing about them soon.