Take a Chance...

...and get surprised! I love taking chances on books although not on Campari. Didnt know it would be so bitter that I'd actually regret ordering a drink. The prawns werent so great either. Miserably ground into a paste along with other vegetables, the essence of it inside a dim sum was lost. All one could taste was the sea, which is not bad sometimes but here it was a mistake.

However, the other chances were lovely. Bought the Namesake, Interpreter of Maladies and Touching Earth at this lovely old, second-hand bookstore in a cramped corner of a bustling, hip shopping street. One could easily miss this gem, it's not blaringly advertised and neither is it located at the very edge of the street that one walks on. At first glance, it looks like a place one could afford to avoid but after going in and browsing through the shelves, one gets treasures like hardbound works of Tagore and collections of Shakespeare plays. VS Naipaul, Vikram Seth and Kazuo Ishiguro were outnumbered but yet, I was glad to run into their work at this bookstore that slashes prices by more than 50% off. And the books are in good condition (the ones I picked up were). The owner could even tell me which pages were missing of which book by just looking at the book I'd picked up.

All we could splurge on were three books. But that was the highlight of a day-long excursion into the very heart of the Garden city. One experience that keeps calling me back to come and get lost in the dusty tomes and towering shelves of this extremely quaint, stacked in a corner bookstore.