Bangalore Times - II

And with that promissory note (actually with the promise and on a happy note...but I felt appropriate by using an inappropriate finance jargon) our friend left for his place. Now it was eight of us and it seemed most of them had different directions to head... How appropriate ;)
One bathroom was a hindrance alright but it seemed the girls were headed somewhere and a few of the guys were tagging along leaving three of us to wonder what hit us!! I mean come-on...We had been to the place for barely an hour and already people were dispersing. Well we calmed ourselves down. Located the smoke and the wine shops first (very important but futile effort. shall be revealed gradually) and then decided that we should also take off. That will give the guys off the block first a chance to get ready quickly and also one of the three musketeers (that’s us) is a Bangalore native (kinda...really looooooooong story) which basically means he has a roof on his head in the city. Therefore we took the car and left for that place and also tagged with us a couple of friends as one of them is also a Bangalore native. He was going off to meet his parents and was on route to Malleshwaram (where we were heading). Therefore we also went to his place...met his parents, did all the formalities and then in a hour came out and headed for normality. Reached Malleshwaram, took bath and then set off for the unknown pastures.

Oh ho...Forgot to mention! Last night in train we hardly ate anything so we were ravenous hence started (frantically) looking for a place to eat. then my friend a.k.a. the localite( hereby referred to as the localite throughout he tenure of this gibberish) suddenly located a place and with a loud screech the car was halted. Supposedly the best "Butter Masala Dosa" serving place in the town was open. Trust me. It is not exaggerated AT ALL. Now that is called a Masala Dosa man!! Awesome... we had two each and then felt on top of the world and then headed towards the most talked about place in town (which we still think is highly over rated)... The Brigade Road-M.G. Road crossing (ever noticed that every Indian city has a M.G. Road? Calcutta has 3!!!).
But we had other things in mind. we left the glam and glitz of the branded giants like KFCs, Reeboks, Adidas' etc and took a small narrow shabby lane that lead us to a tiny book shop called The Select Book House which proudly housed the caption,--"Where like-minded people meet!".
Quite a statement eh? We also thought so till we entered the tiny place. It’s not a book shop! It’s a man's own personal collection...God knows why he sells them and that too at a price which even Tom Hanks in U'Ve Got Mail couldn't think of!
To kinda test this man's collection I asked him whether he had a proscribed book which I have searched all over but to no avail... and bang! This guy took it out from a drawer below his table. Man I was about to jump and buy it when this guy says it has already been booked by someone else...how mean! But whatever. It’s a Salman Rushdie for Christ's sake!!! How did he get was a question I really wanted to ask but refrained from it as I liked the place already. So went in deep into his 7000 odd book collection and after lot dilemma whether to buy the entire book store or not, I finally bough two classics:
1) Man eaters of kumaon by Major Jim Corbett and
2) To kill a mocking bird by Nelle Harper Lee

Felt very content because mind you…none of these books are less than 30 years old... worth paying the fifty bucks it costed me.

When everyone was done with their shopping we headed back towards the guest house as the time to co-ordinate, meet and go over to the reception was nearing.

Stay tuned folks...