Month: January 2009

Indian coffee house

~ bjcharles ~ Leave a comment

Last weekend I went to the famed Coffee House at M.G road Bangalore. It’s one of the oldest and finest place to have good quality coffee with conversation at the cheapest price.

This Coffee house is in a building which is as tattered like the framed old coffee campaigns hung inside the room. This shop has two floors. The lower floor in this coffee house is mostly filled with the floating crowd and the one above has the more regular crowd.

Death kneel to Coffee house

Recently in Times of India there was a small column written about his Coffee house. It traced back the long service of this idyllic coffee house and how it had brewed fine coffee and conversation. It says that this place is likely to be shifted to some other location and I think for sure, this building is going to go under the rubble.

This article got me to photography the coffee ambience and the old pictures. I feel the best time to take pictures would be in the morning when the crowd is thin and I go ga-ga with my Camera. S5IS.

More pictures and news later ….

I’m yours in Coffee

Size does matter!

~ bjcharles ~ Leave a comment
Often wonder all the numerals and sub categories that go behind the perfect cup. Oh, I’m taking about the bra size which goes like 34, 38, a, b, c, etc…

Does size matter? Yes, it does from the write up “Times of India” prompted me. The article is about “wrong bra size ” which came in the newspaper made to write my version of the story.

Indian Women Wearing Wrong Bra Size 
Those readers who haven’t read this article, they can zoom in and read it’s brass points. I’ve also searched google to find more informative links about this topic. These two links will take you to more information and let you to guage your best fit…. how to measure your bra size and also bra size calculator.

Apart from what’s written, from my personal observation I’ve noticed many women wearing wrong sized bras. Sometimes I looks outright gross, with undersized cups with oversized boo**. 

This wrong choice often makes their breasts either looking menacingly sturdy or too saggy. while the appearances can be deceptive, it can also bring out adverse effects and in some cases cause permanent disfigurement of their mammary gland.
Recently a friend of mine went to a bra store and as per their advice she went to a more fitting bra which held her inner decks in the right place. Yes, I would suggest that you too follow suit, and adorn the most comfortable ones. Yes, it get you noticed for the right reason and you can ward off unwanted attention!!

Heavy discount lure Bangalore Buyers

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@ Garuda Mall

Luring buyers with all creative discount offers

It’s a buyers market, thanks to recession exported from U S of A. Businesses are down, pink slips are flying around and the average citizen has culled the shopping budgets.

First signs of bad economy came from reality markets and now it has spawned to our gleaming shopping malls.

Many shopping places are devoid of buyers. I pass everyday by Oasis shopping mall( Sony world junction, koramangala) and most of the time I find only hand full of customers walking it. Such numbers can hardly contain the overheads.

While the fear of loosing the job has made all of us tighten our budgets, stopped using our credit cards and kept away from the glassy bazzar’s.

Until the time the economy show some sign of recovery, this trendis going to linger. I wonder if it become worse that this, and until such time, sellers has to come with new marketing tricks to pull the elusive shopper to their cash registers.

This is the time to showcase exemplary customer service and tactfull marketing. Sadly, customer service is badly dealt by the average seller, and now I would like to see some changes on the faces of people at the other side of the counter.

While Cambridge Layout sleeps….

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What are your thoughts you think of your neighborhood? Well, I’m sure that you would think of it as a larger extension of your home. A place you can be at ease, topped with warm inviting and friendly people who protects and considers you as one among them.

But these days, when I think of my locality in Cambridge Layout Bangalore, I get mixed treat of emotions. As for me, the emotional pendulum swings from attachment to detachment.

Reason to be attached with Cambridge extension
It is close to all the happening place in Bangalore. Commercial Street, M.G Road, Koramangala etc. Moreover, it’s near to Church street where I hang aroud during weekends – for beer to second hand books.

Facilities
Other facilities around this residential area are

Hospital – Cambridge Hosptial, Shymala Clinic
Restaurant –
Fitness Centers –
Beauty Parlour – Fa Madria,
Temples –
Church –
Grounds –
Parks –
Juice stalls –
Sports shop –
Fish stores
Handicraft – Jute Cottage,
Coffee Joint

Missing part in Cambridge Layout
But, in spite of all these facilities at Cambridge Layout, I still feel disconnected with the people, the residents or with my neighbors. This sort of individual existence often disturbs me, but as anyone, I move on in life.

Old ways of Bangalore as Pensioners paradise or the Garden city has become a misnomer in the face of rapid change. People with plastic money and wealth from overseas assignments has swelled the place with greed and overshot ego in every ones mind.

Yes, it has given people with plush job, fat pay, more credit cards, more EMI’s, upbeat apts, big fat cars, flashy wife’s & girl friends, exquisite restaurants, and so forth.

But is this life’s all about? Where is old charm of life, when friends meet over a cup of coffee, when neighbors used be friends. I don’t care attitude of life has gotten every single soul, from kids to Grand parents.

Yesterday, while returning from work (late at night), I just passed through the desolate, cold houses that adjoined Polo Bar. Only sign of life was from the light coming from houses and the parked cars greeted with cold affection. As I sped on, I thought of the residents who stay in this place.

“ Are they happy in their life“? Do they think the way I do or am I getting these thoughts from my aging soul and spirit. I don’t think I can ever find answer; nevertheless I can give it a try. Maybe, I can dare to meet few strangers around here and share my thoughts: “ over a coffee or beer“. : )

As drifting logs of wood

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As drifting logs of wood may haply meet On ocean’s waters surging to and fro, And having met, drift once again apart, So, fleeting is the intercourse of men. E’en as a traveler meeting with the shade Of some o’erhung tree, awhile reposes, Then leaves its shelter to pursue his ways, So men meet friends, then part with them for ever.

Source: Code of Manu

I wandered lonely as a cloud

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Out of the blue, I fell back in time to remember one of the poems I’ve leaned in post-school years. It is a song by : William Wordsworth and the Poem is “I Wandered Lonely as a cloud”.

I vaguely remember the teacher who taught it but few lines in the poem still causes by mind to wader like a lonely cloud over o’er vales and hills.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Though I haven’t seen Daffodils in my life, these lines paints in me a beautiful picture of this flower. I think most you too would share the same emotional pang when going through this wonderful poem.

Let me not talk much but share this poem to all of you.

I Wandered Lonely as a cloud –

by: William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.