My Musings

On 18th Oct 2013, I ordered three books and a case for the mobile phone (Nokia Asha) from Flipkart. They were delivered the next day (19-08-2013 Saturday). ( i) THE KILL LIST - Frederick Forsyth --- Rs 199.00 (ii) THE DEATH BENEFIT - Robin Cook -- Rs 179.00 (iii) NANO - Robin Cook - Rs 299.00 (iv) case for the phone -- Rs 175.00 Cash on Delivery. rajappa 20-10-2013

ANNA CENTENARY LIBARARY (அண்ணா நூற்றாண்டு நூலகம்) is a newly established State Library of Tamilnadu. It was declared open on 15th Sept 2010. Located in Kotturpuram, Chennai. This last Sunday, 1st May 2011, we hit upon the idea - we will go and see this library. No serious reason, but a sudden whiff of fancy. Vijaya, her old classmate and friend Mrs Prema, and I left house at 3-30PM. A bus upto Madhya Kailash, and an auto thereon, left us at the gates of this huge, beautiful building at 4 PM. From the outside, it was immensely impressive and imposing - maybe of 9 or 10 floors, exquisitely constructed. As we walked the lawns to reach the Main Entrance, the interest in us was bubbling. (Caution: Handbags, Cameras are strictly prohibited. Even waterbottles are not allowed inside the halls.) There is a 5-feet bronze statue of Mr CN Annadurai, in whose name and honour this library is built. This is the Tamilnadu Chief minister Mr M Karunanidhi's pet project and he, as usual, has ov...

A Book Fair is held in Chennai every year in the month of January, and this is growing in size year after year. From last year, the venue for this Fair is a school opposite to Pachayappan college in Poonamalee High road. This year, the Fair started on 4th Jan; it was to be inaugurated by the Chief Minister, but he could not make it since it was POURING in Chennai that day. The Fair will be there till 17th Jan. We (Arun, Gayathri, Vijaya, and I) planned to go to the Fair yesterday (10th Jan). We started in Arun's car by 5-30PM. Sowmi was talking non-stop during the travel. There are 569 stalls, brightly lit and arranged orderly. 95% of the books displayed are Tamil. Some stalls were crowded and in some stalls not a single person entered. Yesterday being a working day, the crowd was sparse - on weekends this should swell. Gayathri purchased a few books and I purchased Kalki's PONNIYIN SELVAN, SIVAKAMIYIN SABATHAM, Rajaji's RAMAYANAM (earlier titled as Chakravarty Thirumaga...

Forty four years ago in 1963 when I joined ERDL at Poona, I purchased my first novel, perhaps. My colleague then, Mr. Sonone and I used to go to a book shop in Camp, Poona to purchase English books. First we purchased all the books by Ian Fleming (James Bond series), one by one as they were being published, starting from Dr. No. Then it was Alistair MacLean, and other authors like Arthur Hailey, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Robin Cook, Tom Clancy, Colin Forbes, and Jack Higgins. My collection of books began growing. When my sons ARUN, ASHOK, and ARVIND got employed in late 1990s, they too started purchasing books on their own – John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer, JK Rowling (Harry Potter) and other new authors came into our house. When they married their wives Gayathri, Neeraja, and Krithika also added to the collection. From the very first day, I had this desire of having a book shelf where I can arrange the books in an orderly fashion. We were storing these books in a jumbo-sized suit...

Giri Traders Mylapore Last week, during our “walk-and-shop-around-Mada-Veedhis” routine, we saw a North Indian couple frenetically searching for a Pooja-mani (bell). They were obviously searching at a wrong place. Overhearing their talk, I wanted to be a Good Samaritan and directed them in Hindi to visit the Giri Trading Agency at the Sannadhi Street nearby. Shortly afterwards, we too ambled across to this GITAA and could see the couple there with a satisfied and happy look.This mail is about Giri Trading Agency, GITAA for short. There was this TVS Giri Iyer living in Matunga, Bombay. Year around 1951. He wished to gift a Sandhya Vandanam book to a upanayanam-boy but couldn’t get one in Matunga of those days. He got a brain wave then – why don’t I start a bookshop in Matunga that would have Tamil religious books? Thus started the tradition of Giri Trading Agency, in 1951. They used to purchase books in Madras and get them by parcel in Bombay.The shop started growing and they felt the n...