|
|
|
NEW DELHI'S NEW BOOK LAND: It's lost
something over the years, but this circular bookstore is still
going strong
|
|
BOOKISH
THOUGHTS
|
|
|
Sorry
if this sounds boastful, but when it comes to books yours truly
has been there, done that. From Alwar's second-hand bookshop in
Chennai's Mylapore borough to the stalls that dot Mumbai's Fountain
area to an unnamed shop on the second-floor of a nondescript building
on Bangalore's Brigade Road to Delhi's everyone-knows-about-it Sunday
market at Daryaganj, I've done it all.
Bookshops, I've seen aplenty. Bombay's Strand
is alright. Bangalore's Gangaram is too pleb. Bangalore Airport's
Sankars is probably the best airport bookshop (and a pretty good
bookshop in its own right). The city's Rhythm and Blues, a bookshop
that used to host mini-concerts on weekends is no longer around,
but it was always more attitude than content. There's a very cool
bookshop opposite the synagogue in Kochi's Jew Town. Delhi's Bookworm
and Fact and Fiction have the ability to surprise you. As does Kolkata's
Oxford. And Crossword is overrated.
Along the way, I have picked up some treasures.
On a Chennai pavement, not too far from the residence of the Maha
Vishnu of Mount Road, I once found a copy of Jane At War, the campy
comic strip that entertained soldiers during WW II from the pages
of The Daily Mirror. An otherwise regulation-airport book-shop in
Mumbai once surprised me by offering for sale a centenary edition
of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (to this date, one of the only
two I have seen). And in my impoverished college days, I picked
up unsold J.G. Ballards (I still have one that my batchmates spared,
The Unlimited Dream Company) for 10 bucks a pop from a circular
book stall on Delhi's Janpath.
|
|
|
CHENNAI'S LANDMARK: 300,000 books.
Need any more reason to visit the Spencer Plaza Landmark?
|
Chennai's Landmark (I am a purist and will root
for the first store that came up on Nungambakkam High Road, although
the one at Spencer Plaza is bigger, and 'more fun') is, to this
writer's mind (and I hope the preceding paragraphs have established
my credentials as a bookstore critic), the finest of them all. That
endorsement doesn't come from a foodie's preference for the coffee
and cookies served up by the store's café-the one I like
better, the Nungambakkam Landmark doesn't have one-but from the
sheer celebration of books on display at the store. From John Barth's
Giles Goatboy to three rare Tolkien treasures (a comic book version
of The Hobbit, since spotted in a couple of shops, and two children's
books Roverandom and Farmer Giles of Ham) to Peter Beagle's The
Last Unicorn to The American Book of The Dead (arguably, the finest
encyclopedia devoted to The Grateful Dead), to assorted Burroughs
and Kerouacs (come to think of it, I never did send in that complaint
about the poor quality of binding on a Flamingo edition of The Naked
Lunch) picked up in the first flush of adulthood, to, arguably,
the only copy of The Whole Earth Catalog seen in Indian bookshops
for a long time, this writer's library is filled with treasures
from Landmark.
|
|
|
DELHI'S DARYAGANJ SUNDAY MARKET: Text
books, yes; others, a big no. This is one market that is over-over-rated
|
I felt let down when the store took over the
other side of the basement in the building it was located on Nungambakkam
High Road (since renamed U.G., or Uttamar Gandhi Road in keeping
with the unwritten dictat about every major Indian city having its
main artery named after the Father of the Nation), but with music,
stationery, souvenirs, DVDs and VHS, and CD-ROMs moving to the other
side, it just meant more space for books (the cards corner was an
eyesore till it was moved; why do card shoppers invariably throng
the outlet in giggly groups?). The Spencer Plaza store (for those
who don't know their Chennai, this modern plaza came up in the same
place were the historic Spencer & Co. building that was gutted
in a 1983 fire stood), at 40,000 square feet is bigger than the
U.G. Road one (12,500 square feet). And a few months, may be three,
from now, Bangalore will have a Landmark that is the biggest of
them all (45,000 square feet).
|
|
|
DELHI'S FACT AND FICTION: Surprises
galore: F&F has one of the finest sci-fi collections in
the country
|
India's Bookwoman
In 1987, Hemu Ramaiah, then a 30-year-old,
whose love for the written word had led to jobs at the Danai chain
of bookstores and in a couple of hotel bookshops in Chennai, decided
that she wanted to get into the business herself. With her brother
Nataraj as a partner, she founded Landmark. Today, Landmark boasts
three stores across Chennai and Kolkata; it recorded revenues of
Rs 50 crore in 2002-03 (Crossword, a more top-of-mind chain than
Landmark north of the Vindhyas, does substantially less, Rs 30 crore,
from its seven stores). And Ramaiah, a die-hard Chennai-lover, has
arrived as the high priestess of Indian book retailing. Today, she
manages the stores with her husband Jai Subramaniam, whom she married
in 1989. ''I am an accountant and am just known as Hemu's husband,''
laughs Subramaniam. ''I do the worrying and she does the spending.''
|
|
|
BANGALORE AIRPORT'S SANKARS: In the
hole that is Bangalore Airport, Sankars is an oasis of civilisation
|
Subramaniam has obligingly divested Ramaiah
of her mobile phone to create a ''no disturbance'' zone for this
writer's meeting with the duo, but she keeps zipping out to the
answer the phone, once coming back fleetingly to ask me whether
journalists make good fiction writers; she wants that to be the
topic for Landmark's next forum (this piece should convince her,
I guess). The Spencer's Landmark-''We have travelled all around
the world and not seen one like it,'' gushes Subramaniam-is big
on events. Quizzes, discussions, you name it, the store hosts them.
And with in-store escalators zipping people up the two floors the
store occupies, there isn't a bookshop like this anywhere in India.
Put Landmark's success down to Ramaiah's belief that ''supply creates
its own demand'', a hoary business saw that holds the promise of
serendipitous discoveries to come while browsing the store. ''The
more variety you have, the more you sell,'' says Ramaiah. And so,
the Spencer's Landmark, that opened doors for business in October
31, 2001, ran out of space on Day One. That didn't stop Ramaiah
from adding 120 more racks. All told the Spencer's Plaza store stocks
1.5 million stock-keeping units, including 300,000 books.
|
|
|
Landmark's Ramaiah: India's Bookwoman
#1
|
Positioned as a ''fun destination'', the conversion
rate at the Spencer Plaza Landmark is lower (one out of eight customers
ends up buying something) than the old store (1:3), and the Kolkata
Landmark (1:5). But from the minute it opened for business, there
was no doubt in Ramaiah's mind that it was a success. ''The first
day is important and the first week will decide the success or death
of a store,'' she says. There was a price to pay: Landmark undertook
debt (for the first time) to launch the Spencer Plaza store, although
Subramaniam's estimate that the store would become profitable in
the second year proved right. None of these, not even the company's
ISO 9001 certification, or Ramaiah's passion for books, not even
Landmark's joint venture with Chennai's East West Publishers, Westland
Books that supplies books to other stores can, however, explain
what makes Landmark the best bookstore in India. My copy of The
Whole Earth Catalog can. And that's just the way it should be.
-with inputs from Nitya Varadarajan
in chennai
|
TREADMILL
|
 Getting
Ripped
There's a myth that does the
rounds in most gyms about what's the best way to get ripped.
That is, get your muscles defined to show the "cuts",
the veins and, well, look really hot with the shirt off your
back. Ask your friendly neighbourhood instructor and chances
are he'll tell you to go for lighter weights and do more reps
per set. As anyone who's followed that regime knows, you can't
be more wrong. Doing lots of reps with lighter weights achieves
nothing. You might as well walk around the gym and ogle at
the women (or the men, depending on your gender or orientation).
Getting ripped has little to do with building muscle mass
or size. The whole point of lifting weights is to build muscle
mass and strength. But getting ripped to show what you've
built is another story. It's about getting rid of the layer
of fat over your muscles. It's possible to have a ripped body
that doesn't show because you haven't got rid of enough fat.
And that's where cardiovascular training comes in.
Most weight trainers use cardio sessions as mere warm-ups
before moving to the weights. True, lifting does burn fat
but the simple fact is that intense cardiovascular training
burns more fat than lifting does and, if integrated well in
your workout sessions, makes you muscular and lean. Of course,
all this assumes that there's one all important ingredient
in your workout regime: lifting. Simply because without weight-training,
there'll be little for you to show off.
There are many ways of incorporating cardio sessions in
your schedule. A personal favourite is a 20-minute session
before hitting the weights followed by a 10-minute session
after you're through. You could either run or walk briskly
on the treadmill; or even jump on a stationary bicycle, although
that last option isn't always good for the knees. But whatever
you do, it has to be intense. For instance, if you walk, it
should be at the fastest speed you can reach.
There's another way of melding cardio into your regime and,
although I don't do it, I've seen many people get astoundingly
ripped following it. It's the cardio interval. One set of
weights alternating with a short but very intense burst of
running on the treadmill. So your full set, if you're bench
pressing, say, would be a bench press followed by a two-to-three
minute run on the treadmill. Then rest and do your second
set and so on. It's exhausting and takes the mickey out of
you but if you're in 100 per cent form, you could try it.
The most ripped guy at my gym does it.
Cardio is one, but there's another factor critical for getting
ripped: diet. But more about that next time.
-MUSCLES MANI
|
|
