Wander Woman

The smell of old books,the scribbles on the margins and the dogeared yellow pages giving a sense of familiarity and content.This is what draws me to Blossoms Book House every single time. I go there to browse and buy old books. The first time I experienced Blossoms was in Kochi,where they sold out of a mezzanine floor. I just went out of curiosity and stayed there for over an hour. I saw old issues of Target and MAD. I didn't know they were even available anymore! But anyway,there began my long association with Blossoms. In Bangalore, they are located on Church Street. They have sold millions of books and enjoy patronage from 6year olds to 60 year olds. In a world of iPads and Kindles, Blossoms still holds and proudly flaunts its old world charm.

Coorg is known as the "Scotland of the East". I dont like such names, frankly because, more often than not they tend to put certain ideas in your head. When you travel, you should go with an open mind, so you can see the place as its really like and not what its supposed to be. Anyway, we drove down to Coorg, on a sunny day, from Bangalore. We avoided the Mysore road and went through Ramanathapura (thank you GPS!),lost our way, went offtrack for an hour, drove through lush green fields and finally reached Coorg in the evening. To say it is beautiful is to say the least. I've always loved the hills more than the coast. Coorg is all rolling hills and lush meadows and coffee plantations. As usual, we didnt go to any of the waterfalls or viewpoints. We just drove through city, Madikeri -the capital of coorg,and its surrounding villages. Kushalnagar has a Buddhist monastery and an elephant camp. That will be on our itinerary next time. This time we just soaked in the local ...