it;s raining outside..started quite randomly I have to say as it always does in Bangalore...you never know when the damn skies are going to open and out forth their showers of blessings. As an added blessing of sorts, the lights went off and I'm currently typing by the mellow light cast by my lap monitor and blind (ha ha!) faith.
I THINK I want to eat something but I don't feel like hogging so yeah.
Sometimes I wish I was at home. If I was at home, I wouldn't have to figure out a way to maneuver my torch and my toothbrush together at the same time to brush my teeth. And, if I was at HOME, my father would fix the light. AND if I was at home I would crib about how hot it was under my mosquito net, but I would wear my raggiest night-wear and go lie like the dead on my parents' bed, in their room where the windows would be open and the cold wind which comes with the rain would blow in to the darkened room. And malli and nangi would come and lay likewise and there would be screams as one abused the other. And there would be mundane gossiping about random people we know.
If I was at home, I'd still be thinking about the things I think about against my will, but somehow things might be better, because although you don't realize when you ARE home, things-even random rains and power failiures-are most often better when you're home.
Now that was a bit of a homesick rant.
Arre! lights came!
Showing posts with label Bangalore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bangalore. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Proscribed art form,much?!
I paid a visit to my favourite place in Bangalore today : B Book Shop-home of the old and yellowed-page version of every possible book in history (except Catcher 
in the Rye which is always mysteriously “Out of stock, madame”).
Once immersed there it usually takes something a bit more urgent than a nuclear power-plant-explosion to remove me from said immersed state BUT today I went with a purpose.
My bratty younger sister (Who’s actually an OK kid J ) is another one of those 14-year olds who would leave their homes for Edward Cullen (Ok so I wouldn’t leave my HOME for him as such, maybe take the last year off college or something), and has been hankering after the 4 books in the quadralogy…which is not a word!!! But I still like it!!
Since books which are usually very affordable in India are usually even more affordable at this joint of mine, swipe-card ready I went.
However, spotting “Midnight’s Children” but Salman Rushdie reminded me that my Tranquil Roomie had asked me to pick up Satanic Verses by Rushdie if/when I went next to Blossom.
This being because when she requested it at some other bookstore, the man at the store had given the fish eye and told her in no uncertain terms that the book was unavailable, permanently
Now the book was banned in India following a HUGE controversy in 1989, and this was e
ven before Khomeini in Iran and his fatwa against Rushdie, which since then has been removed, I think. I had thought by now the furore would have died down.
I went to the cashier and asked him if the book was there, although I have to admit I was a bit disoriented at first because he had the most fantastic squint and I thought he wasn’t giving me his undivided attention as such, poor man.
On hearing my words, he nods and does and 180 degrees, shuffles through some random papers and files in the messy steel rack behind the counter and presents with me with what looks like a sheaf of loosely-bound papers.
Looking closer, the book is cover-less, obviously to avoid detection and the pages have just been bound together. The last page is coming off. It really has the look of the proscribed book.
I say ahhh you don’t have it with a cover do you? He looks at me and the shelf behind me simultaneously and gives a sheepish smile, nope.
So I decide to give TR a call and we decide that she will pay a visit to the place herself to see if it’s worth paying Rs.500 for it.
When I go back to the cashier and tell him I don’t want it, HE gives me the fish eye. The kind of look a closet junkie would give a plain-clothes cop I guess followed by placing the book in its unobtrusive spot again.
Now that was interesting. You’d think the ban was lifted by now, Rushdie’s other book are bestsellers hereabouts.
in the Rye which is always mysteriously “Out of stock, madame”).Once immersed there it usually takes something a bit more urgent than a nuclear power-plant-explosion to remove me from said immersed state BUT today I went with a purpose.
My bratty younger sister (Who’s actually an OK kid J ) is another one of those 14-year olds who would leave their homes for Edward Cullen (Ok so I wouldn’t leave my HOME for him as such, maybe take the last year off college or something), and has been hankering after the 4 books in the quadralogy…which is not a word!!! But I still like it!!
Since books which are usually very affordable in India are usually even more affordable at this joint of mine, swipe-card ready I went.
However, spotting “Midnight’s Children” but Salman Rushdie reminded me that my Tranquil Roomie had asked me to pick up Satanic Verses by Rushdie if/when I went next to Blossom.
This being because when she requested it at some other bookstore, the man at the store had given the fish eye and told her in no uncertain terms that the book was unavailable, permanently
Now the book was banned in India following a HUGE controversy in 1989, and this was e
ven before Khomeini in Iran and his fatwa against Rushdie, which since then has been removed, I think. I had thought by now the furore would have died down.I went to the cashier and asked him if the book was there, although I have to admit I was a bit disoriented at first because he had the most fantastic squint and I thought he wasn’t giving me his undivided attention as such, poor man.
On hearing my words, he nods and does and 180 degrees, shuffles through some random papers and files in the messy steel rack behind the counter and presents with me with what looks like a sheaf of loosely-bound papers.
Looking closer, the book is cover-less, obviously to avoid detection and the pages have just been bound together. The last page is coming off. It really has the look of the proscribed book.
I say ahhh you don’t have it with a cover do you? He looks at me and the shelf behind me simultaneously and gives a sheepish smile, nope.
So I decide to give TR a call and we decide that she will pay a visit to the place herself to see if it’s worth paying Rs.500 for it.
When I go back to the cashier and tell him I don’t want it, HE gives me the fish eye. The kind of look a closet junkie would give a plain-clothes cop I guess followed by placing the book in its unobtrusive spot again.
Now that was interesting. You’d think the ban was lifted by now, Rushdie’s other book are bestsellers hereabouts.
Very, very interesting.
.
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