Bangalore diaries...My acquaintance with this city of gardens began last year in August when the company that I work in currently posted me there. People who know have accused me of being one of the few, may be the only north Indian to have fallen in love with the city. There are reasons...the primary being that I realize the true worth of a thing only after I have lost it...so sitting here in Delhi my mind often goes back to the eight eventful months that I spent in the city of gardens...though when there I have missed Delhi terribly too sometimes...after all its home. Though right now I would gladly give a limb to get out of this god forsaken place! And then follow it up an ode to Delhi when I start missing it...that's how life works for me! Anyways getting back to Bangalore, here is a list of things that I have done there, wished I could have done there that make memories of that place special to me...

#Filter coffee...loads of it and in every variation...light...regular...strong...or as my dear friends from FSS Bangalore called "extra strong" variation abnormal! One particular friend in FSS started the practice of adding some bournvita (or was it boost?) to it...the result...our very own lip smacking mocha filter coffee! coffee with breakfast at nine...the eleven am coffee break...the four pm coffee break...coffee with evening snacks at six! What particularly endears me to the coffee is not only that it was a gastronomical delight but that each cuppa has memories attached to it...of chit chats, jokes, book discussions, woes, worries, cray ideas, dreams, thoughts, aspirations...what not! shared with friends.

#Bookworm on Brigade Road and MG Road...this nondescript little place is a book lover's haven...with its amazing collection of used as well as new books in a place which is smaller than my bedroom...ahh! the musty smell of old used books...the courteous, ever helpful owner...and the books...filling up shelves from floor to the ceiling...at an affordable price too...though later I discovered that one could easily bargain too! I have spent many a happy hour there...looking for stories...The Brothers Karamazov, Lolita, PG Wodehouses, Rubaiyat, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Exodus,...and for tales that each second hand book carries...the histories of the owners through whose hands it has passed...names, places, dates, scribblings, notes... Even the diary that the owner kept to make a note of the books requested bythe patrons but not available with Bookworm had a story of its own...It was gift from a man to his beloved...with a lovely note on the first page dated sometime in the 1970s...bound in black or maroon, I forget with a motif on the front...what followed inside was even better...the pages were yellowed with a hint of gold and also with age and each page had a quote by Kahlil Gibran...for each day of the year! How the diray had to come to land up in that place no one, not even the owner had a clue! For a long time I coveted that diary but as to how to procure another one like that was never able to find out... Of course there were Blossoms and Premier and Crosswords and LandMark and zillion other places that sold books but for some reason Bookworm will always be the one closest to my heart.

That's all for now...Bangalore diaries will be continued in the next posting...cheers!