The Vanishing Bookstores

When visiting Pune recently, I found that the Landmark, which originally started out as a bookstore plus in Chennai a few years ago and then got taken over by the Tatas, had closed its branch at SGS Mall, which was accessible easily to me from where I live.

This is not the only bookstore I know that has closed, though. There are many more. Manney's also in the same area as above, shut down earlier. A few Crosswords that I knew of have also closed-one on Bangalore's Residency Road, for instance.

As a person who likes to browse before he buys, I am concerned. That civilisation is in danger, if we only order online and don't want to spend the time browsing in actual physical stores. There seems to be something wrong here. Airport bookstalls were almost a given, until I found two years ago that Delhi's budget departure lounge did not have a book store any more. This is such an obvious place to sell books, so I don't know what went wrong. The greed of the airport in increasing lease rentals, sounds like a plausible explanation.

Anyway, as I was saying, I am concerned. And I hope that there are a few good stores left to sell books during my lifetime.

Vanishing Cream

I was always intrigued by this contraption- OK, cosmetic- named the vanishing cream. I mean, who would want to vanish, and what if that happened permanently? But assuming that some segments of people vanished, hat impact would it have on the rest? Here is an unva(r) nished look at the possibilities. May not be as apocalyptic as The White House burning, but still..

If telecallers vanished, I would get maybe three calls a month. And the telecom service companies would go bankrupt.

If all the ad-men/women vanished, I could watch whatever little TV I watch, peacefully.. and wouldn't need to buy the NEW deo to attract yet another cute girl (or an army of them)..I am not talking about ME here, it's only metaphorical.

If banks were to vanish, mattresses could come with secret chambers, like some trousers still do. To hide the cash in. And ATM thieves and online money-transfer scamsters would have to re-skill.

If big retail stores were to vanish, moms and pops who ran stores would be happy. Maybe their sons and daughters too.

If drugs were to vanish, smugglers would struggle to make two ends meet. Everything else is already made in Taiwan and available everywhere.

If all the talent shows vanished, maybe some real talent would surface..and its quality would be terrific when it did surface.

Likewise, if TV vanished, choupals would come back in vogue, to meet and exchange the day's news, views and more. Ok, Facebook would also have to vanish. Conceded.

If cricket vanished and Bollywood too, Indians will suffer a breakdown, and may stare at the blank TV screen for days on end. Or, may be they'll start talking sense.

If  Britain vanished, there would be no more delinquent nations who would imagine that they still ruled the world, a hundred years after the event.

Some more thoughts, dear reader?

Vanishing Artists

Daler Mehndi, Alisha of "Made in India" fame, Ranjita Kaur who was a regular in several 70s/80s films like Taraana, Damaad, Ankhiyon ke Jahronkhon Se, Rameshwari of Dulhan Wahi Jo Piya Man Bhaaye and Sunayna, ...the list is long. The question is the same. Where are they? What are they up to?

And it's not just those from those days. Even recent ones are fairly infrequent in their appearance- or close to disappearance. Ayesha Jhulka, Amrita Rao after Vivaah (the film), Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Ashish Vidyarthi, and so on.

I saw Bombay Talkies the other day at Kolkata. Nice in a way, but the effect wears off pretty quickly after you leave the theatre. I liked the Dibakar Banerjee film the best, followed by the story of the kid who wants to be a dancer, directed by Zoya Akhtar.