Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and getteth understanding…
She is more precious than rubies, and all that thou hast cannot be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left riches and honor.
Her are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
From Proverbs 3:13-17
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Quotable Sandman...
I have been reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman series recently. Out of the 10 first volumes I have completed 8 and two are still remaining. The Sandman is the Lord of Dreams, and I have found a few lines worth quoting from the series...
And what do you want from me?
Everything. What else is there to want?
Am I dreaming?
Not a bit of it. Quite the reverse if anything.
Getting what you want and being happy are two quite different things.
If you have nothing left to want, then you just wait until there is nothing left to wait for.
You really are just what you look like you are.
I do not know. I think so.
We do not represent them. We are them.
They say death is kinder than he is.
His hot fingers are already invading her soft curves and moist crevices.
Sleep until life wakes you.
It isn't fair, but it is right.
Eventually, it begins to get dark.
There is a joy in there, of course, and love, and touching.
The presence that makes the absence unbearable.
Her kiss is a deep ocean.
Her kiss is not a deep ocean.
Her kiss is the grey sky.
Her kiss is a blind alley.
Her kiss is her touch is her breath
is her fingers is what remains
after the laughing is over.
Her kiss is the blackness.
Her kiss is not the blackness.
Her kiss is a black dog.
That follows you in the darkness.
And people ask,
Does despair despair?
Does dream dream?
Does desire desire?
Is everything over?
No, its just begun.
If you can't be happy when you are, you can't be happy anywhere.
Hell is other people.
To be despair. It is a portrait.
Only close your eyes and feel.
They are after all, all we have.
Who knew? Who could have known?
I have heard the language of the apocalypses, and now I will embrace silence.
That's not unlikely. This is unlikely.
You don't believe me. I don't mind, I don't always believe me either.
It cannot be stolen. It cannot be given away.
Perhaps one of our problems may prove a solution to the other.
But this kind of thing, doesn't happen to you, does it? It happens to other people.
I am coming, though the way is ardous and strange.
My admiration doesn't lessen my anger.
Great stories will always return to their original forms.
I have learnt from my mistakes, but I have had more time to commit more mistakes.
She isn't yours Nathan. She belongs to no one, except herself.
A black mirror made to reflect everything about itself that humanity will not confront.
For all of you, the dream is over. I have taken it away from you.
I don't understand it, but I believe it.
If my dream was true, then everthing we know, everything that we think we know is a lie.
When its just you and a blank sheet of paper.
If that is what you wish, it is done.
Is anything forever?
It's a fools prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.
His folly, is no fault of mine.
I am that merry wanderer of night.
It never happened and yet it is true.
And it is forever summers twilight...
And I wonder, why I wonder...
But the price of getting what you want, is getting what you once wanted.
Things need not have happened to be true.
You make your own hell.
And who might you be?
But I know of things no one else knows.
To absent friends, lost loves and old gods, and the season of mists; may each and every one of us give the devil his due.
...as if merely saying something were enough to make it true.
...it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
We do what we must. Lucien. Sometimes we can choose path we follow, sometimes choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all.
Innocence, once lost, can never be regained.
The kind where you know it is a nightmare, but you still can't wake yourself up.
I think hell is something you carry around you, not somewhere you go.
Your impertinence invites my severest displeasure.
Times have changed and we have changed with them.
Do not wander from the path when you return.
If only it were that easy.
I never thought disposing of the unwanted would be so hard.
There must be a hell, for without hell heaven has no meaning.
As such though I regret it, I cannot fault it.
Tell her that we need to talk.
We will hurt you and we are not sorry.
The land is far from lost.
So what are we waiting for, exactly? I mean, if that is not a dumb question?
However, I am not sure that I know the answer.
We are in the twilightzone.
I don't have to kill a rabbit, do I?
Shit in one hand and wish in other, see which fills up first.
I'd been lying so hard I'd convinced myself I was telling them the truth.
Sometimes inaction itself is action.
It was freely given and well meant.
I don't think home is a place anymore. I think it is a state of mind.
For they have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind.
We should take our goodbyes whenever we can.
Liberty is a bitch who must be bedded on a matress of corpses.
Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered.
The truth here is a matter of conjecture.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly.
We write our names in the sand, then waves roll and wash them away.
She ought to be mine, but she isn't, is she?
His madness keeps him sane.
What more than that a man could desire?
For the lesson perhaps, if for nothing else.
Values's in what people think. Not in what's real. Value's in dreams, boy.
You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story.
wishes are best left sometimes ungranted...
Am I arguing with a dream?
I'll wake you up and you will go where dreams go.
And forewarned is seldom forearmed.
You come in, you do not go out again.
A good mystery can last forever.
For those were the days of wonder.
It is unwise to summon what you cannot dismiss.
It has been far too long since we sat beneath the summer moon together and talked of pleasant fripperies, of that and this, and left others to speak sensible things of import and consequence.
I do not wish. I know. What must happen, will happen.That is the way of it.
There's is something I want and I can't have it and I am going to take it anyway. That's my problem.
Somethings are too big to be seen, some emotions are too huge to be felt.
I think you are more in love with the idea of your dead love than you were with the girl herself.
There will be conditions, but then, there always are.
Thou hast made the furies cry.
There are always rules.
He is not one to forget a slight. Nor to forgive.
But he does not change. He will not. Perhaps he cannot.
You do not give. We take.
But you have made your own errors. It was your own life.
I'm not blessed or merciful. I'm just me.
Someone once brought me a flower, clandestinely. That means I do not know who it was. And I never saw the flower, either. Maybe they never brought it after all.
Ah, that is unlike you.What's wrong?
And it distresses me to see you troubled.
I hate being nowhere.
We shall seek answers. We may seek questions also.
Shadow plays of memory are forever being enacted, on paths that you walked on not too long ago.
Life is a strange way of describing our experience.
I can do that if I have to.
And somebody said he wouldn't keep going on about a perfectly understandable mistake that anyone could have made.
Don't drink the cup, just the coffee.
Because there's no such thing as one sided coin.
Why does it seem like none of us, know what we are doing?
Nothing new can exist without destroying the old.
One cannot begin a new dream without abandoning the last.
Life like time is a journey through darkness.
What's done can't be undone.
We do not always accomplish what we set out to do.
Our journey is over, all debts are paid.
... in a manner of recognizing a line from a familiar poem in a strange book.
Nobody is fine on their own. people need people.
It wasn't that the things got bad, but they were no more spectacularly good.
And you never get to learn what happens to anyone else.
It is fearful thing to be haunted by those who loved you once, it is fearful to haunt those one loves.
There is a thin line between intoxication and unconsciousness, and I think he is about to cross it.
There are rumours, but that is all they are.
Like there was nothing left to hold on to. Nothing left to believe.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Ghalib and communication...
Nawab Agha Khan Ashq wrote the following lines about Ghalib, which I think also applies to a lot of `intellectuals'.
(If only you understand what you have composed, what is one to do?
The joy of composing is when one composes and others understand too
When Meer writes and Sauda say we understand
But his couplets only he understands and God, its true.)
अगर अपना काहा तुम अाप ही समझे तो क्या समझे?
मजा कहने का तब है, एक कहे अैार दुसरा समझे
जुबान मिर लिखे अैार कलाम सैादा समझे
मगर ईनका काहा ये अाप समझे या खुदा समझे.
(If only you understand what you have composed, what is one to do?
The joy of composing is when one composes and others understand too
When Meer writes and Sauda say we understand
But his couplets only he understands and God, its true.)
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
D...
Well, I am D.
Now what does this D stands for, some call it a family name...
It is that, but it stands for something more, something beyond the oblivion...
Now what does this D stands for, some call it a family name...
It is that, but it stands for something more, something beyond the oblivion...
D is for Desire!
D is for Delight!
D is for Despair!
D is for Delirium!
D is for Dream!
D is for Destiny!
D is for Death!
D is for Damitr!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Candy Shops for Bibliophiles 3
After the initial post on bibliophilia [here], and book shops in Nagpur [here] and Pune [here] we now come to the third in this series. The city of Mumbai [formerly known as Bombay] . There is too much to write about Mumbai, the way it was, it is and it will be in the future to come. Since it is my current location since about three years, and it is to be so for the coming few years, I have developed a special bond with the city. When I was in Pune, I had come quite a few times to Mumbai, with one of my friends who belonged here. It was during my visits in those years that I came to know about the Old/Used book markets in the city.
The first one which I will describe is in the heart of the Mumbai, The Fort area. Currently there is no Fort in this area, but there was in the early days of Nineteenth Century. The Fort has long gone since then, for making space for civilian and other buildings, and now only the name remains.
There are too many things in the small area which are of interest to me. I cannot maybe describe them all in this blog. Maybe, The Fort, needs a blog entirely for itself. But lets not divulge too much into it, as right now the thing that we are interested in are the Candy Shops for Bibliophiles. The Fort area presents the bibliophiles with a wide opportunity to shop, right from the old/used books to one of the quite old shops in Mumbai the Strand Books.
I recommend that you start from the CST [Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus formerly known as Victoria Terminus or VT] and take on the D N Road [Dadabhai Nowrojee Road]. Start walking from the Western end of the road, the end at which Mc Donalds is present. Almost right up to the Flora Fountain, one finds a sort of subway created by the arches of the buildings of Victorian architecture.
Along these corridors there are a lot of proper book stores. Some notable among them are the Computer Book Shop, Bookzone, Ashish Book Stores.
See the map below. Ashish Book Stores also have a annual exhibition in which you get lot of books at heavily discounted prices. Usually the book fair is at the Sunderbai Hall, near Churchgate.
On the other side of the road is the Sterling Book Stores, which will give you an enormous variety of technical books to get. They have substantial sections on Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy and Psychology. In most of these shops you will get about upto 10-15% discount on the list price.
Along the corridor you may find one or two old book sellers. One at very beginning and one may be in the middle of the passage. They were frequent a few years back. I got my copy of Albert Einstein : Philosopher and Scientist here in these shops. In fact a lot of old booksellers were present till a few years back, most of them now being removed, I guess in the anti-encroachment drive. But the walk through these 'corridors' is worth for the books that await you at the end of this walk.
You can drop by to the Khadi Bhavan, which is on the way to do some nice shopping. If you take a left turn at the Khadi Bhavan Chowk, it will lead you to Strand Booksellers. They have good collection of books on all subjects. You won't find too technical books here, but books for general reading are more than abundant. Every year Strand people have the Strand Book Festival, which is a must visit. The book fair is usually during January end of February beginning, at the Sunderbai Hall, Near Churchgate. Huge discounts are on the offering in this mania of books. So make it a point to visit it!!
Now, if you go straight this will lead you to the American Express Building. Along side the walls of this building are the old book sellers. A few years back they were quite spread out, some of them had shops along the walls of the High Court building also. But now they have been contained in this small pocket here.
The sellers here are quite knowledgable about the books that they keep. They know the books by title and author. Some also make it a point to keep the books according to authors. The books most of the times are neatly classified by geners or subjets. They know almost all books by Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan. The more popular a book, more are the chances that you might find them here. But sometimes you get jewels here. I got my Why's of a Philosophical Scrivener by Martin Gardner here.
The book sellers also have a library system, which means that after reading the book you can return the book and get some amount back. But who wants to depart with a book, especially if you are a bibliophile? The most common books that you will get here are the novels of all kinds. Bargaining can be done, and you can get books in quite cheap rates, especially if you are a regular.
The best time to visit is a late Sunday afternoon. When you can have all the time to browse through endless piles of books, to find what you are searching for.
One thing that you might miss on a Sunday is that many of the proper book shops mentioned above including Sterling and Strand, and the Khadi Bhandar are closed on Sundays. But the advantage to go on Sunday is a drastic reduction in the crowd that is present on the weekdays. So if you want to visit them all, the best day is a Saturday.
Till last year some sporadic old book shops were also present along the footpaths, of the Old Bombay University Building, the side on the opposite to FabIndia and Globus, near Kala Ghoda end. Here some of the sellers used to sell books for a cheap but fixed price. Some of lots would have Rs. 10/20/30 for a book. Sometimes I have found quite interesting titles here. But recently in a last few months I did not find these stalls. Maybe they were removed from there permanently. I have also found similar shops along walls of the Post and Telegraph Office. But they are not always there. If you are lucky you probably might get them.
While returning to CST do not forget to visit the Fort Book Distributors, opposite the main entrance to CST [Legend 2 in the map]. This is a unique proper book shop which also sells old/used books at quite cheap prices. They also have exhibition and sales of books at different places in Mumbai, so keep an eye out for them in the newspapers. My last visit to their FBD Book Fair was quite fruitful.
So much for the south part of Mumbai. In next post I will cover the Old Book sellers in the so called college district of Mumbai, the Matunga Area.
Till then happy book hunting!!
Update: As per comment of Square Peg below, I have not mentioned the New and Secondhand Book Shop. Yes! It is there from quite some time if I remember correctly since early days of last century and I did not know about it.
Only recently I came to know about it from Arvind Gupta. And I have not mentioned it. I was going to… but procrastination has its own strange ways in which it works…
So here it is :
The New and Second Hand Book Shop:
For this wonderful shop go to the Metro Cinema Square. There is a shop of musical instruments opposite Metro Cinema [well not exactly opposite, but across the street]. So when you keep your back towards Metro and are standing in front of this Music Store, start walking along the road towards right. After a few shops you have a lane going to left of the road. Just at this corner is the New and Second Hand Book shop. But beware the entrance is a bit small. Two times it happened that I went and saw that the shutters were down so just came back. Third time when I went there, I saw somebody coming out of what I thought was a closed shop. So this is where I discovered the entrance to the shop. They are open till 7 in the evening and closed on sundays.
Visiting the shop makes you feel as if you are visiting an old library. The shop has books lined up nicely according to subjects. The shelves have subject labels on them. Browsing through the shelves can, at times, become tedious. The section on social sciences is quite large. You get 30% discount on all the new books. For the old books the prices are mentioned on the cover and on that you get additional 30% discount. Most of the books are more than reasonably priced; they are cheap :). Also don't forget to visit the second floor also.
So do visit this shop, till then happy book hunting…
[Map coming soon]
The first one which I will describe is in the heart of the Mumbai, The Fort area. Currently there is no Fort in this area, but there was in the early days of Nineteenth Century. The Fort has long gone since then, for making space for civilian and other buildings, and now only the name remains.
There are too many things in the small area which are of interest to me. I cannot maybe describe them all in this blog. Maybe, The Fort, needs a blog entirely for itself. But lets not divulge too much into it, as right now the thing that we are interested in are the Candy Shops for Bibliophiles. The Fort area presents the bibliophiles with a wide opportunity to shop, right from the old/used books to one of the quite old shops in Mumbai the Strand Books.
I recommend that you start from the CST [Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus formerly known as Victoria Terminus or VT] and take on the D N Road [Dadabhai Nowrojee Road]. Start walking from the Western end of the road, the end at which Mc Donalds is present. Almost right up to the Flora Fountain, one finds a sort of subway created by the arches of the buildings of Victorian architecture.
Along these corridors there are a lot of proper book stores. Some notable among them are the Computer Book Shop, Bookzone, Ashish Book Stores.
See the map below. Ashish Book Stores also have a annual exhibition in which you get lot of books at heavily discounted prices. Usually the book fair is at the Sunderbai Hall, near Churchgate.
On the other side of the road is the Sterling Book Stores, which will give you an enormous variety of technical books to get. They have substantial sections on Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy and Psychology. In most of these shops you will get about upto 10-15% discount on the list price.
Along the corridor you may find one or two old book sellers. One at very beginning and one may be in the middle of the passage. They were frequent a few years back. I got my copy of Albert Einstein : Philosopher and Scientist here in these shops. In fact a lot of old booksellers were present till a few years back, most of them now being removed, I guess in the anti-encroachment drive. But the walk through these 'corridors' is worth for the books that await you at the end of this walk.
You can drop by to the Khadi Bhavan, which is on the way to do some nice shopping. If you take a left turn at the Khadi Bhavan Chowk, it will lead you to Strand Booksellers. They have good collection of books on all subjects. You won't find too technical books here, but books for general reading are more than abundant. Every year Strand people have the Strand Book Festival, which is a must visit. The book fair is usually during January end of February beginning, at the Sunderbai Hall, Near Churchgate. Huge discounts are on the offering in this mania of books. So make it a point to visit it!!
Now, if you go straight this will lead you to the American Express Building. Along side the walls of this building are the old book sellers. A few years back they were quite spread out, some of them had shops along the walls of the High Court building also. But now they have been contained in this small pocket here.
The sellers here are quite knowledgable about the books that they keep. They know the books by title and author. Some also make it a point to keep the books according to authors. The books most of the times are neatly classified by geners or subjets. They know almost all books by Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan. The more popular a book, more are the chances that you might find them here. But sometimes you get jewels here. I got my Why's of a Philosophical Scrivener by Martin Gardner here.
The book sellers also have a library system, which means that after reading the book you can return the book and get some amount back. But who wants to depart with a book, especially if you are a bibliophile? The most common books that you will get here are the novels of all kinds. Bargaining can be done, and you can get books in quite cheap rates, especially if you are a regular.
The best time to visit is a late Sunday afternoon. When you can have all the time to browse through endless piles of books, to find what you are searching for.
One thing that you might miss on a Sunday is that many of the proper book shops mentioned above including Sterling and Strand, and the Khadi Bhandar are closed on Sundays. But the advantage to go on Sunday is a drastic reduction in the crowd that is present on the weekdays. So if you want to visit them all, the best day is a Saturday.
Till last year some sporadic old book shops were also present along the footpaths, of the Old Bombay University Building, the side on the opposite to FabIndia and Globus, near Kala Ghoda end. Here some of the sellers used to sell books for a cheap but fixed price. Some of lots would have Rs. 10/20/30 for a book. Sometimes I have found quite interesting titles here. But recently in a last few months I did not find these stalls. Maybe they were removed from there permanently. I have also found similar shops along walls of the Post and Telegraph Office. But they are not always there. If you are lucky you probably might get them.
While returning to CST do not forget to visit the Fort Book Distributors, opposite the main entrance to CST [Legend 2 in the map]. This is a unique proper book shop which also sells old/used books at quite cheap prices. They also have exhibition and sales of books at different places in Mumbai, so keep an eye out for them in the newspapers. My last visit to their FBD Book Fair was quite fruitful.
So much for the south part of Mumbai. In next post I will cover the Old Book sellers in the so called college district of Mumbai, the Matunga Area.
Till then happy book hunting!!
Update: As per comment of Square Peg below, I have not mentioned the New and Secondhand Book Shop. Yes! It is there from quite some time if I remember correctly since early days of last century and I did not know about it.
Only recently I came to know about it from Arvind Gupta. And I have not mentioned it. I was going to… but procrastination has its own strange ways in which it works…
So here it is :
The New and Second Hand Book Shop:
For this wonderful shop go to the Metro Cinema Square. There is a shop of musical instruments opposite Metro Cinema [well not exactly opposite, but across the street]. So when you keep your back towards Metro and are standing in front of this Music Store, start walking along the road towards right. After a few shops you have a lane going to left of the road. Just at this corner is the New and Second Hand Book shop. But beware the entrance is a bit small. Two times it happened that I went and saw that the shutters were down so just came back. Third time when I went there, I saw somebody coming out of what I thought was a closed shop. So this is where I discovered the entrance to the shop. They are open till 7 in the evening and closed on sundays.
Visiting the shop makes you feel as if you are visiting an old library. The shop has books lined up nicely according to subjects. The shelves have subject labels on them. Browsing through the shelves can, at times, become tedious. The section on social sciences is quite large. You get 30% discount on all the new books. For the old books the prices are mentioned on the cover and on that you get additional 30% discount. Most of the books are more than reasonably priced; they are cheap :). Also don't forget to visit the second floor also.
So do visit this shop, till then happy book hunting…
[Map coming soon]
Candy Shops for Bibliophiles 2
After looking at the bookshops in the heart of India we now turn to the second chapter in this series. The Oxford of the East. Pune [पुणे].
Pune has a large student population. The are some very good colleges in Pune. Apart from the standard colleges, there are a large number of courses being offerred by different institutions. Academically speaking I am a product of Pune. Both my alma mater are here. The first one being grand old Fergusson College and then the Department of Physics at the University of Pune. Coming to Pune from Nagpur was a transitive phase for me.
Well here I experienced lot of things which I would not have had, had I been not here. Anyways coming back to the main issue. Since Pune has a large student population, there are a large number of bookshops, publishers to support them.
The most famous area is the Appa Balwant Chowk [अप्पा बळवंत चौक] , popularly known as ABC. This area is in the heart of Old City. The area around ABC is literally overflowing with old and new book shops. But alas most of the books that you get here are the standard ones, Nirali, VBD, Manali types. But anyways, this is what most of the students are looking for. And also you can sell your old books here. With some booksellers there is a library system available, you can get about 50% money back when you return the books after you have used them. Only rarely you will stumble across books which do not form a part of any standard syllabus. You can bargain here.
Open throughout the day.
Apart from these there are few proper bookshops in Pune which you can visit.
They are:
International Book Store, Deccan Gymkhana, just opposite to Mr. Prabhakar.
They have some good sections on technical books, literature, and humanities. Also there is an annual sale, in which many books are sold very cheaply, so keep an eye out for that. 10-15% discount on the list price. Legend 1 in the map.
Popular Book Shop, Deccan Gymkhana, along the same side of the road as International. As the name suggests mostly popular books, the kind of ones which you will get in Crossword. But worth a visit. 15 % discount on the list price, but no discount if you pay by card. [Legend 2 in the map.]
As soon as you leave the Z Bridge coming from Deccan take a left turn, and if you go straight for about 50 meters, you will find Universal Book Stores on the right hand side of the road. This is _the_ technical book store around. You can get almost all books in print here. Plus upto 20% discount on the list price. Here is where I first saw Gravitation by Misner, Wheeler and Thorne in a shop.[Legend 3 in the map.]
Finally, Manney's Book Store in Clover Centre, Camp. This is the most comprehensive of them all. You get books on all subjects under the sun. And they have a huge collection of them. Perfect combination of quality as well as quantity. Upper floor is for technical books. Just to look around the complete shop, will take quite some time. You DON'T get any discount. Pay as per the list price, but a must visit.
Photos of other sites along with maps will be added soon.
Pune has a large student population. The are some very good colleges in Pune. Apart from the standard colleges, there are a large number of courses being offerred by different institutions. Academically speaking I am a product of Pune. Both my alma mater are here. The first one being grand old Fergusson College and then the Department of Physics at the University of Pune. Coming to Pune from Nagpur was a transitive phase for me.
Well here I experienced lot of things which I would not have had, had I been not here. Anyways coming back to the main issue. Since Pune has a large student population, there are a large number of bookshops, publishers to support them.
The most famous area is the Appa Balwant Chowk [अप्पा बळवंत चौक] , popularly known as ABC. This area is in the heart of Old City. The area around ABC is literally overflowing with old and new book shops. But alas most of the books that you get here are the standard ones, Nirali, VBD, Manali types. But anyways, this is what most of the students are looking for. And also you can sell your old books here. With some booksellers there is a library system available, you can get about 50% money back when you return the books after you have used them. Only rarely you will stumble across books which do not form a part of any standard syllabus. You can bargain here.
Open throughout the day.
But apart from this there are a few other sellers which I want to tell you about. They are Mr. Prabhakar and Co. Major chunk of my own collection comes from them. These booksellers do not have a permanent shop as such but are basically street vendors. They sit at the Deccan end of the Sambhaji Bridge [संभाजी पुल ], also known as the Lakdi Pul [लकड़ी पुल ]. Be careful not to take your two wheeler on this bridge, this only a three and more wheeler bridge!
Mr. Prabhakar with his road side stall, at Deccan End of Sambhaji Bridge.
Now if you are a true book-lover this is the time to get the books. Keep an eye out for the books that they are taking out of their bags. As soon as you find something interesting keep it aside. That is the strategy that I had adopted when I was in the town. I have myself got quite a few good books from them. I hope you too, along with a lot of Mir/Russian titles. They are open all days of the week in the evenings till about 8:30 pm.
Apart from these there are few proper bookshops in Pune which you can visit.
They are:
International Book Store, Deccan Gymkhana, just opposite to Mr. Prabhakar.
They have some good sections on technical books, literature, and humanities. Also there is an annual sale, in which many books are sold very cheaply, so keep an eye out for that. 10-15% discount on the list price. Legend 1 in the map.
Popular Book Shop, Deccan Gymkhana, along the same side of the road as International. As the name suggests mostly popular books, the kind of ones which you will get in Crossword. But worth a visit. 15 % discount on the list price, but no discount if you pay by card. [Legend 2 in the map.]
Just around the corner from Popular Book Shop is the famous Good Luck Restaurant, one of the few Irani Cafes left in the city. Don't forget to have some mouthwatering delicacies there. Do try Bun-Maska there! [Legend 4 in the map]
As soon as you leave the Z Bridge coming from Deccan take a left turn, and if you go straight for about 50 meters, you will find Universal Book Stores on the right hand side of the road. This is _the_ technical book store around. You can get almost all books in print here. Plus upto 20% discount on the list price. Here is where I first saw Gravitation by Misner, Wheeler and Thorne in a shop.[Legend 3 in the map.]
Finally, Manney's Book Store in Clover Centre, Camp. This is the most comprehensive of them all. You get books on all subjects under the sun. And they have a huge collection of them. Perfect combination of quality as well as quantity. Upper floor is for technical books. Just to look around the complete shop, will take quite some time. You DON'T get any discount. Pay as per the list price, but a must visit.
Photos of other sites along with maps will be added soon.
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