This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. Each of us examined the concept of ‘BANGALORE’ through our unique perspective, distilled into roughly 500 words. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.
Your relationship with a city is determined by the habits it forces upon you. Especially if it’s unrelated to work. To corporate slaves like my partner and I, it’s on weekends that Bangalore, having tortured us with traffic for the whole week, asks a question—how are you going to spend your day off? The texture of our answers have changed over the last six years we’ve been living together in the city. From loafing around in yellow ‘Bounce’ rental scooters to spending two days in a state of suspended animation between sleeping and reading, we have come a long way. But one thing has remained constant throughout these years—our visit to the Blossom Book House.
It’s a ritual. One of us utters Blossom and in five minutes we find ourselves booking an auto for KR Puram metro station.
We reach in an hour or so and enter the dark lift-lobby of the building that houses Blossom on the third floor. The age of the building can be guessed by the inconsistent shape of lift buttons. The older ones are, presumably, so old that their replacement would have gone out of market. It’s Bangalore’s very own lift of Theseus in the making. A reception desk in the corner bears witness to it. I have never seen anyone even hovering around the desk. It seems to be there not as a place to do receptiony things but as an art piece that commemorates what once was an office space in the olden times.
We reach the entrance of the shop. My partner walks straight to the young adult section. I pass through the classics section to my left. Then take another left to get stared down at by philosophy, go straight through biography and reach the dead-end that has unsorted old books piled against the wall. By now I have found something to skim through. I keep inching towards the poetry section. There comes a point when I stand there, staring at the spines of the books, not able to decide which ones I should take home. The books for which the desire to read outweighs my guilt of unread piles at home, I pick up.
This can happen in any bookshop so what makes it different at Blossom? The difference is, you don’t accidentally stumble upon a title only once at Blossom. You think you have decided not to buy a particular book and have moved on. Blossom makes you accidentally find the same book again, most likely a different edition, in another unsorted pile. The desire you worked so hard dousing rekindles, and you end up buying the book.
I am sure my partner too goes through the same cycle. In an hour or so, our paths cross near the fiction section. We throw guilty glances at each other, make hollow promises of not coming to this place ever again until we’ve finished reading the pile at home, and make a reluctant move to the check-out counter.
Could this ritual be replicated in any other city except Bangalore? Sure it can, if that city has a bookshop like Blossom. I haven’t found one yet.
PS: there are three Blossom Book House branches on the same street. Two of the older ones look like this. They are sketched by my partner, Prajakta, on post-it notes. The third one doesn’t have a front. We pretend that it’s our little secret and feel happy about it.
Essays by fellow writers—
Looking Down over Bengaluru by Vaibhav Gupta, Thorough and Unkempt
A Walk, A Pause by Mihir Chate, Mihir Chate
Bookless in Bangalore by Vikram Chandrashekar Vikram’s Substack
Bangalore: A personal lore by Siddhesh Raut, Shana, Ded Shana
Bangalore,once by Avinash Shenoy, Off the walls
Bangalore Down the lane of History by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer
Nagar Life by Nidhishree Venugopal, General in her Labyrinth
Belonging by Shruthi Iyer
The Street Teaches You by Karthik, Reading This World
The Wild Heart of Bangalore by Devayani Khare, Geosophy
A Love Letter to Bangalore by Priyanka Sacheti, A Home for Homeless Thoughts
Movies Dates, Bangalore and Them by Amit Charles, AC Notes
Between Cities by Richa Vadini Singh, Here’s What I Think
A Haven? Awake in Bangalore, by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain
My love affair with blue skies by Sailee Rane, Sunny climate stormy climate
A City That Builds Belonging by Sathish Seshadri, Strategy & Sustainability
There and Back Again by Ayush, Ayush's Substack
If you like what you read here on Mehfil, please support us by clicking on the button below. You can choose any amount.
Lovely essay. Lift of Theseus is inspired. :)
I try to work in a Blossoms visit every time I'm in Bangalore.
"We throw guilty glances at each other, make hollow promises of not coming to this place ever again until we’ve finished reading the pile at home, and make a reluctant move to the check-out counter." Are we all living the same life? :D In our case, we always arrive with a bag of books we've finished reading and decided not to keep. They deftly go through them and give us a credit note for 50% of the value. Whoa, that's not a small sum, we point out to each other. We should easily be able to take a few books home without spending any more money. We go our separate ways and get lost between the aisles. Two hours later, back at the checkout desk, we fork out twice that sum and the credit note, and walk out again, our bag overflowing with more books. It's okay, we tell each other, we got some absolute gems. Anyway, it's not like books have an expiry date. We'll read them.