Basket Case

10:30 AM on Sunday mornings. That is the time when Open Coffee Club Bangalore meets at some pre-selected venue - usually a nice and cozy coffee shop or a newly-opened-looking-for-some-exposure restaurant. It is a great way of finding out good places to have coffee and off beat food. For example, I discovered Tam's in Koramangala through one of the meets. While for me this is a good enough reason to get up every alternate Sunday mornings and head to OCC meet, you might find the entrepreneurship aspect of OCC more alluring. Essentially OCC comprises of folks who are somehow related to entrepreneurship, startups, ecosystem - those sort of things and cannot afford to drink on Sunday mornings. So they (me included) end up getting together and talk about issues that affect us, opportunities that we can use and generally get to know each other. The diversity of the group is amazing. A sample of people from the most recent meet in ZOE, Indiranagar - A chartered Accountant, A fashion and im

Recently India's first air conditioned bus stand opened up in Bangalore. In a state that is reeling under severe power shortage - street lights are off on many roads in Bangalore, farmers in the state are getting electricity in the night, hence watering the fields in night and getting bitten by snakes in turn - 2 deaths and 6 more cases in past month or so. And in a city with a lovely weather, which is said to have natural air conditioning in place. Sure it has deteriorated in years but still pretty powerful if you ask my running nose and coughing throat. And in such a city and such a state, we proudly build a air conditioned bus stand. It is wrong on so many counts that it makes me desperate.

The Bangalore Book Festival is back. It is happening at Palace Gorunds from 14th - 23rd November. There are going to be over 275 stalls by various publishers and booksellers. I am excited about it both as a book lover and also as somebody who now has business interest in publishing and printing . Check out the details about the festival here : Bangalore Book Festical 2008 I visited the 2004 festival and was mightly pleased with the tons and tons of books all around. That was also the start of my professional life and for the first time I had lots of disposable money on my hands. As a result, I returned back home with around 15 books in my hands, some of them still unread 4 years later :-). But the excitment of buying books is always worth it. Do leave a comment if you plan to go to the festival. What are your expectations? Looking for some rare books? Hoping to discover some new and exciting publishers?