Wear the old coat and ...

Dear Rupa,
A gift for folding the bed?
Sandeep,
10/10/83

Not the most elegant inscription perhaps, it still thrilled me to see the same at the first page of the old copy of Shame - Salman Rushdie, I bought from Blossom's recently. Just think of it, I was born in February '82 and when Sandeep gifted the crisp new copy of the latest Rushdie book to Rupa, I was just a toddler of 18 months in all. The book also has an aged bookmark which says - "Love is ... sharing a book".

"Wear the old coat and buy the new book", so they say at Crossword, but I have found out the opposite to be a more exciting option :). Let me remind you of the french cinematic classic - Amelie. There the protagonist - Amelie - finds a box tucked behind the tiles in her apartment which has stored memories of a boy for many decades. She finds the fellow, who has aged to his salt-n-pepper hair, and returns the box to him. Old books, with personal inscriptions, notes & names make me feel the same. Like Shame, I've quite a few used books with me - some of them have some words underlined (to build vocabulary, I suppose), some really old ones have brownish pages whose edges shade off gradually, many have names written on them - all of them carry a small bit of the characters of their old owners.

Another good thing about this - and I have no shame to admit it - I save good money by buying used books. I have discovered a few used book stores by now, but the one that beats them all hands down has to be Blossom's. They have quite extensive coverage of topics and authors. You can find technical books, books on photography, classics of Shakespear, verses of Keats - books on almost everything under the sun. They keep new copies of latest books as well and even the prices are a tad lower than other bookstores, but it is a good idea to check first with the street vendors for the pirated copies of the latest books. But the collection with those guys is very limited and quite often I have been disappointed.

If you happen to be in Bangalore and books interest you, you must pay a visit to Blossom's. Its located on the Church Street, just opposite to Three Quarter Chinese/ Ameoba Sports Bar. I have the Google Earth placemark for the place with me, just drop a mail if you want it.