A grand “Sadhya“, golden brown roasted “chapathis“, saravana bhavan dosa and fresh cut salads. These are now regular scenes in my dream. In fact eating tasty food has moved up from my to-do list to life-time ambition list. The reason – Our college canteen.

Still clueless ?? Ok, Imagine a big steel plate (which may or may not be clean). Now imagine half baked chapatis, 3 varieties of dal (which all taste the same), and a liquid which is “christened” as rasam. This has been my staple diet for about 2 weeks and everything else palatable comes with an extra cost. I already feel I have not eaten good food for centuries.

So now the big question ? Even though there are numerous case studies on bad food in airline industry, why is there not even a single case study on bad food in college and school canteen ? So does this mean that these two cases have no relation at all. I feel otherwise. In fact I think all the airline CEOs were psychologically affected by bad food in their college canteen and now they are taking revenge on the public. And the gullible economists , without knowing the actual reason are trying hard to relate microeconomics and monopolization with bad food in airline industry. 

So who is finally benefiting from all these ?

After much analysis (mentally – with no data whatsoever) , I think I have found the answer. Its none other than “Maggi“.  Otherwise , what else can possibly explain the ever increasing sale of maggi noodles, even though they have been cheating us for ages and everybody knows that its not practically possible to make maggi in 2 minutes flat. Still forgiving the “time factor” right now maggi is my saviour. The guardian angel of all student souls in manipal.

So as I contemplate the factors affecting maggi sales in manipal and airline food industry, I finally realised that its 5:00 PM , ie tea time – canteen time.

“What’s the difference between a B-school and a Prison?”

Ans: You are almost always allowed to come back to the prison if you happen to run away.

( Thoughts borrowed from future managers of India- my batch mates)

 Anyways, After spending nearly a week in a B-school, I am still alive, I am still able to differentiate humans & handguns, My sanity levels are at an all time high and I am enjoying the system. Discipline and strictness apart, life at any college is bound to be full of adventure & fun and I am already experiencing my piece of cake. And not to mention the real-time simulated situations for future managers to tackle, like say, the morning loo-fights with your roommate or worse getting stuck in the loo with no water in the pipe. These are real time simulations for the concept of maximum utilization of scarce resource. (6:30am-7:30am being the scarce resource time). I suppose the decisions taken will be crucial taking the time factor into account (i.e. classes start at 8:30). And then the class room discussions and debates. I have never seen so many people discussing and debating a solution with no clue as to what could be even remotely termed as a problem or issue. ( Me included in the list of debaters).  Ok, Jokes apart,  For somebody out there who wants a sneak peek at a typical B-school session, here it is.====>

 

Environment : 50-60 Highly intelligent (at least everybody thinks so) humans who can talk, walk and even eat in English. ( and when I mean English, it’s not UK English or US English but MBA English with frequent usage of words like “articulate”, “collate”, “contemplate” etc., and any logical sentence spoken in class must invariably contain one or more of the terms like accrue, inventory, ROI, break even, PLACEMENT etc …

Raw Material : Usually cases are discussed in class room sessions (Case Study). Most of the time the case is totally shred and torn apart and only the carcasses’ remain.

Learning Derived :  Improvement in speech quality, stamina to speak continuously for hours , MBA vocabulary and yes at times Analytical and out-of-the-box thinking.

( In fact I felt case studies are one of the most effective methods of pedagogy with good emphasis on real time situation and problem solving. Also students have to be so much involved in the discussion that it’s nearly impossible to sleep in the class L )

Conclusion:  Finally we all learn to agree to disagree and the class disperses only to continue the debates and discussion in the hostel as part of assignments, group work(see annexure) and homework. J

 

Annexure :

Group Assignments: This is the best part in any B-school curriculum. Basically the group assignments are a chance for you to sit together in a group and “chit chat” and still have the feeling that you are studying. Occasionally though we all come up with some unbelievably simple and ingenious solution for the given problems.

 

 

 

 

Finally I am back. Back to school -> Bschool . And man! It’s tough here. Much much tougher than I presumed.

And so, after a much deserved  break , I have finally something to write about. My new school – TAPMI, Manipal. Manipal, Situated among the undulating terrains of south karnataka, this place is just too peaceful at heart and at the same time buzzing with energy, radiated out of more that 20000 students pursuing various courses in this town. Nicknamed chirrapunji of the south (India), its mostly raining out here. In fact, I heard that a nearby forest known as “Agumbe” is the land of king-cobra’s. Seeing a live king cobra has become a fascination for me ever since I saw a herpetologist touching one in discovery channel. But right now, I have no wish to actually see one. 14 days of continuous absence from the class is a good enough reason to make you pack your bags and I have absolutely no wish to be the next Steve jobs.

 So coming back to TAPMI, what to say??. This place is a synonym for discipline. A little bit extra strict , but still manageable. But the best thing I liked about TAPMI is that right from day one the institution is trying hard to make us feel at home. Induction programme was too cool, seniors are exceptionally cooperative and everything is pretty much pre-planned and itinerarised.  Except for the no-leave policy , everything is as expected. So if you are packing your bags and planning to come here, better be prepared to stay away from home for more than 6-10 months. (But there seems to be a silver lining : a week-long holiday in October. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope to be at home by then.)

And as I read more books on Organizational behavior, Micro economics and Accounting in my quest to become a better manager , I hope I will be able to come back once a while and keep this blog alive with news from one of the best Bschools in the country- TAPMI.

After hours of googling and reading FAQs , I had to finally bend my back, look up at the same old ceiling and say WTF, when I figured out that wordpress doesn’t support simple java widgets like shelfari . So is it possible ???

Yes, but not exactly the way I wanted it. And I hope many would have already noticed that I nearly succeeded (if not then tilt your  eyes  30° to the right and you would notice my shelfari widget right there ). Even though this is not an exact web2.0 version, still it would suffice for the time being, I hope …

 

Now how to do it ? :-

You will literally bang your head when you learn this. Its quite simple. 

Step 1: Go to your shelfari home page, give a print screen and get a snap shot of your shelf. ( edit it the way you like it ).

Step 2: Upload the picture to any website ( flickr, orkut or your myspace ) and note the link reference to the uploaded picture.

Step 3: In the wordpress text widget paste this HTML code (edit the links) :

<ul><li><a
href=”http:// xxxxxxxx (your shelf link)”> SHELFARI <img border=”0″ src=”http:// yyyyyyy (your uploaded photo link)”> width=”140″ height=”200″>
</a></li></ul>

Step 4: Save changes and you have your temporary shelfari widget, ready to use.

Note : make sure you give proper URLs in step 3. Also you can use gif instead of jpg( you can easily create one using online editors. Thus you have multiple jpg’s and can show many books in your small widget). Also you can similarly link to any other website where you want to link a page to an image.

Its back to basic HTML.

 

It was with a sudden jolt that I woke up. Something didn’t feel right. My head was aching and I felt numb. I felt a pain in my head as if I was hit by something. It must have been a nightmare. But what? , I can’t remember pretty much except for an image of a coconut. The more I tried concentrating and escaping out of the trance state, the more eerie it became.

 

I turned towards the door as I heard the knocks. I don’t know how, but I knew who was behind those doors. I called out loud , “Come in, I am almost awake”. As my friend came inside, It only added to my confusion. Not only did I know who it was, but I was shocked to remember a foggy image of the sequence and conversation that followed. Still I kept silent and continued the animated conversation.

 

But how is that possible? I wondered. Soon my friend left and I decided to take a stroll. May be a walk would refresh me, I thought. But it proved me wrong.

 

As soon as I stepped outside the same eeriness engulfed me that was consuming me so far. I was not able to come to logical conclusions and I was not able to keep track of time. I was still wondering why, as I walked. Everything seemed to me as if it had already happened. Was I seeing the future? Did I suddenly become an oracle? And why the hell am I not able to recognize many colors?

 

I walked along. Cars and buses flying besides me. Where was I? I looked around. And there, far across that road, I could see the temple I knew. The lights were bright and I walked towards that direction.

 

Was I walking or flying? I was not sure. In fact I was suddenly not sure of anything. Everything felt cold.

 

 

I could still see the old coconut tree near that temple. And for some reason I knew I was not to go near the tree but I couldn’t help it. I walked nearer and nearer, as if it was calling me. Something was dragging me. Soon enough I was there, right beneath it. Waiting, waiting for something to happen as my instinct told me it would happen. And in a flash it just happened. The big coconut fell right on my head. It was sudden jolt and I woke up. It felt numb as I looked around.

 

Its hardly 5 days since I left my work, my friends and Chennai , and  I was worried about my next course of action… And its hardly 5 days and now here I am sitting in my room, enjoying homely food, being proud that I have finally become a true keralite.  Still confused at this statement ? – well for once, now I am educated, jobless, sitting at home doing nothing but eat-sleep-eat, and I am still confident of making it big sometime in the near future. What else can qualify me for an authentic “mallu” category. – May be a “mundu” and some “shouting-slogans” will be icing on the cake….In last 5 days I suddenly felt like I missed a lot of action being in a boring, workaholic, growth-oriented TamilNadu. Well let me explain more:-

 As soon as I switched on the TV after reaching home , I thought 3rd world war has started. But it took me 20 seconds to read that it was just a protest in Kerala against the new textbooks for class VII in kerala state syllabus, as some people thought it was influenced by communist ideas. There is always a reason for every Indian to be on the streets. But the mallus show the maximum emotion and excitement. Some books and effigies were burnt and losses were less than Rs. 2lakh. Considering the number of people on streets ( Enough to fill Saravana stores), Its surprising that nobody was injured and everybody enjoyed it. Of course you need to do something when you are job less. And any idea why most of the mallu’s living in Kerala are jobless? I think ,  One main reason being that many don’t have work, and the reason for no work being that all the factory owners ran away due to strikes and more strikes means no-more work. Didn’t you get the crux ??? well its a vicious circle encircling Kerala for about 50years. So now some people have found a new alternative to circumvent this problem, ie to work outside Kerala. (I too fell in that category until last week).  Finally I realised that 90% of the protesters were actually protesting against their own class VII results (which many would have flunked) and expressing emotions which they couldn’t for the past 10-15 years . Soon I started flipping channels.

 

Soon I was in Rajasthan.  So its not a big deal whether you are in Rajasthan or Kerala. In Rajasthan,  a section of people are ACTUALLY protesting so that government will bring their caste in to the “economically backward section” – EBC.  C’mon guys, the leader of this so group came in a private chopper, took the state under ransom for about a week and finally got the benefit of  reservation for his group. But at 69% reservation, its not a big deal after all, if you do the math right. Now that almost every caste in Rajasthan is under some reservation or the other, it all eventually breaks down to literally no reservation situation. I am now wondering what will happen to the agnostics and atheists etc. May be the remaining 31% will go to them soon.

 

But seriously these people are missing the bigger picture. As long as you depend on reservation, you will never be competitive. When will the government learn this fundamental rule ? The government is not tackling the larger issue and by giving immediate solutions like this, they are only making the matter worse. 

And as I change more channels – WOW ,  a new protest in Punjab … truly , This is also one reason why everyone from Jammu to Kerala is a true INDIAN. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS:  Just for the records (and for the curious souls out there ), I was not fired. I had to quit to pursure my passion.

A very good base script, good songs,annoying background music, lot of junk animation, totally sloppy screenplay, literally zero choreo, jokes that will make you cry, ear blasting sounds, unwanted and totally Hollywood-copied stunts, mediocre make-up, unbelievable pre-launch marketing and one man’s idiosyncrasy – Well that’s Dasavataram in short. I never thought I would be so disappointed by someone whom I adored as a film maker. In my view, Dasavataram is must read case study for “how to market your product even if it is a bag full of bullshit”. ( What else can make me write a review at 4:00AM, after watching the night show and feel totally cheated )

Now bringing you the details:

To start with , a prequel :–

Dasavataram is Dr.Kamal Hassan’s much hyped up latest movie, in which he does 10 different characters. The movie had so much hype and media attention that even personalities like M.Karunanidhi, Amitabh Bachan and Jackie Chan were brought in for the audio release. But we should have easily predicted about the content when the movie’s release date was postponed due to a trivial thing like IPL.

Now the battering:

I will try, as much as possible, to not throw away the suspense (as if there were any), at least for those who have already booked tickets to watch this pathetic movie. First things first. Even though the movie starts with 12th century settings and graphics, you don’t need to be a critic or a nuclear scientist to identify that the sequence has nothing much to do with the whole film ( of course , other than adding to the number of Kamal heads – priest of temple – Kamal#1 , wasting a lot of money on graphics and to show off an irony for the climax.).

Soon after a fight takes over followed by a song in 12th century and we are suddenly put in 2004, four days before Tsunami hits the seabed of TamilNadu. Our hero, Govind – aka – Kamal#2 , is a bio-tech scientist in US and he is now in a total mess because a bio weapon they developed is about to go into wrong hands. So he takes the packet containing the bio-capsule and due to some unbelievably funny events, he ends up in Chitambaram – TamilNadu – only to be chased by Flecher an ex-CIA-bad-guy (Kamal#3). By this point Kamal#4 ie US President George Bush look alike is introduced (A totally unwanted character who is portrayed as the key behind the development of the bio-weapon technology) . But what I don’t understand is, why would Kamal want to do such stupid guest roles in his own movie? Anyways compared to other make-ups, Kamal#4 is way above par.

Also Mallika Sherawat is introduced by now (only to be killed later tragically) and she would partner Kamal#3 CIA agent till interval. Her role is crisp, to the point and she does it perfectly. ( I guess, Since Kamal takes up 90% of the film shots, the director had to kill Mallika, to give some space for other characters including Asin )

The real mess starts only after we reach India. A funny Telugu police officer comes into picture. No prizes for guesses. You have a decent Kamal#5 – Bal Ram. His jokes are the one’s which I mentioned earlier as pathetic. Still Kamal has done damn good justice to this role. The police Kamal makes sure that he chases all the 3 supposed “terrorists” through out the clock( ie ex-CIA turned criminal, Mallika and Govind ) and the sequences which follows are more like a cartoon – still watchable.

So as the chase for the bio-capsule continues more Kamals (#6) ie Asin’s grandmother takes center stage. Well this was one character Kamal could have avoided. Even though the CIA agent was very close in the race, the “patti” takes the cake for making Kamal look like one of those rubber-chin hanging alien creatures we have seen many times in Star War movies. Still imagining? Let me help you out. Imagine a Kamal face full of so much plaster of paris and makeup, that it is eventually immaterial as to who is inside those sick rubber masks. There you have Kamal#6 (Patti) , Kamal#7 (A very tall guy) and Kamal#8 ( Japanese guy). Well all these characters could have been easily done with, but for the fact that this whole movie was taken with the sole purpose of showing Kamal’s brilliance in 10 different roles. ( Its like touching your nose around the head, just because you want it that way to create a new touch-your-nose record.)

The remaining 2 Kamals are Kamal#9 (an NGO guy who fights against illegal sand mining – good role ) and Kamal#10 , A pop singer sardar where Kamal does a very good job, but again the character being totally out of scope of the movie.

So as the bio-capsule changes hands between the “Patti” , Asin, Govind and CIA, the script beautifully deals with issues like religion, bio-warfare and even illegal sand mining. But eventually the good guys have to win, right? So after many fights and songs the D-day approaches ie 26th Dec 2004, the day of Tsunami. And as the bio-capsule breaks and the virus starts spreading, the only anti-virus-agent is provided by GOD himself in the form of Tsunami. Confused ?? Well the virus-bomb can be de-activated only by usinga very complex compound named NaCl . (Well that’s the funnies part in the movie). Little did Kamal knew that, nowadays even students of class 7 are taught that common salt is also known as NaCl – and where else to find it in abundance than Sea. ( At this stage I could only think about the movie “Evolution” where shampoo saves the day). At least Kamal could have come up with some other complex stuff like uranium or magnesium which is also found in sea water.

And as everything ends fine, the viewer is left at his own mercy pondering whether he got all the 10 Kamal’s – or oops!! did He miss one ??

My final verdict : Well the movie has a solid theme and some very good acting but lacks the hyped up class and doesn’t deliver as per expectations. The animations and graphics are a total waste of money and play detrimental role but again some of the special effects like multiple Kamal’s in the same scene fighting with each other are really good. So finally I would say – Do watch the movie , but with less expectations.

A hand-written 800-word “prequel” to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series sold for $49000 at a London charity auction on Tuesday 10 June 2008.

Here is the copy I “literally plagiarized”, from sites like www.gryffindorgazette.com. ( No way I could have re-typed the whole thing … J K Rowling’s handwriting is not very good either. )

Anyways I would really want to thank www.waterstones.com for uploading the manuscript.

Enjoy Potter mania !!!!!!

The Harry Potter Prequel, by JK Rowling

==========================
The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted,”Whoa!” Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without seating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail lights, vanished up the narrow side street.

“We’ve got ‘em now!” cried PC Anderson excitedly. “That’s a dead end!”

Leaning hard on the steering wheel and crashing his gears, Fisher scraped half the paint off the flank of the car as he forced it up the alleyway in pursuit.

There in the headlights sat their quarry, stationary at last after a quarter of an hour’s chase. The two riders were trapped between a towering brick wall and the police car, which was now crawling towards them like some growling luminous-eyes predator.

There was so little space between the car doors and the walls of the alley that Fisher and Anderson had difficulty extricating themselves from the vehicle. It injured their dignity to have to inch, crab-like,towards the miscreants. Fisher dragged his generous belly along the wall,tearing buttons off his shirt as he went, and finally snapping off the wing mirror with his backside.

“Get off the bike!” he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it.

They did as they were told, finally pulling free from the broken wing mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair, his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter’s guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in t-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, timeless rock band.

“No helmet!” Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. “Exceeding the speed limit by-by a considerable amount!” (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motorcycle could travel.) “Failure to stop for the police!”

“We’d have loved to stop for a chat,” said the boy in glasses,”only we were trying–”

“Don’t get smart-you two are in a heap of trouble!” snarled Anderson. “Names!”

“Names?” repeated the long-haired driver.”Er-Well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce…Bathsheba…Elvendork…”

“And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy OR a girl,” said the boy in glasses.

“Oh, our names, did you mean?” asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage.”You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!”

“Things’ll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheek little-”

But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staying past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical, fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.

For the space of a heartbeat both policemen imagined guns gleaming at them, but a second later they saw that the motorcyclists had drawn nothing more than-

“Drumsticks?” jeered Anderson. “Right pair of jokers, aren’t you? Right, we’re arresting you on a charge of–”

But Anderson never got to name the charge. James and Sirius had shouted something incomprehensible, and the beams from the headlights had moved.

The policemen wheeled around, then staggered backwards. Three men were flying-actually flying- up the alley on broomsticks-and at the same moment,the police car was rearing up on its back wheels.

Fisher’s knee bucked; as he sat down hard; Anderson tripped over Fisher’s legs and fell on top of him, as flump-bang-crunch- they heard the mean on brooms slam into the suspended car and fall, apparently insensible, to the ground, while broken bits of broomstick clattered down around them.

The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers.

“Thanks very much!” called Sirius over the throb of the engine.”We owe you one!”

“Yeah, nice meeting you!” said James. “And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!”

There was an earth-shaking crash, and Fisher and Anderson threw their arms around each other in fright; their car had just fallen back to the ground. Now it was the motorcycle’s turn to rear. Before the policemen’s disbelieving eyes, it took off into thin air: James and Sirius zoomed away into the night sky, their tail light twinkling behind them like a vanishing ruby.

From the prequel I am not working on-but that was fun! J.K. Rowling.

===============================
Also checkout the original manuscript at www.waterstones.com

RELEVANCE OF VALUES IN NEW-GEN ORGANIZATIONS

By Balesh Lakshminarayanan

Dictionary says -“Values”: Moral or professional standards of behaviour; principles; The ideals, customs, institutions, etc., of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard. These values may be positive, as cleanliness, freedom, or education, or negative, as cruelty, crime, or blasphemy.

“Values” – the word has suddenly become a phenomenon in every organization and board meetings. Interestingly, other similar topics like ethics, integrity, honesty, loyalty etc are now among the top concerns for managers in every organization, across verticals. The relevance of these values and what drives all these companies to aggressively pursue such a trend is a million dollar question and we will try to figure out a comprehensible and sensible answer to this very question in the following passages.

Much has been written and talked, about the importance of values and ethics for the growth of a person, as well as, an organization. Some of the earliest works in this subject, like “ Kautilya’s Arthashastra” dating back to 4th century BC clearly illustrate the importance of ethics & honesty for taking strategic decisions. But, in the present generation, where everyone wants to be at the peak, in the shortest period of time, definitely values are pushed towards the back seat.

In 2004, Booz Allen Hamilton and The Aspen Institute, conducted a global study to understand the importance of values in the companies. One of their most significant findings was that, more and more companies are making their values explicit, a practice that is quite different from what existed 10 years ago. Such studies give us a fresh outlook and possible answers for the intriguing questions we saw earlier.

For once, it’s clear that new generation organizations see “values” as something contemporary and a tool to achieve better brand image, customer satisfaction, productivity and thus the overall objective of growth and success. This trend can be substantiated by the very fact that companies are suddenly showing a renewed interest in building brand image, logos, catch phrases, changing their “vision” & “mission” statements to project their “values” to the outside world and even follow new process methodologies which are in turn nothing but another form of inculcating discipline and values among employees.

Recently, a 100 million$ fine was imposed on Mclaren F1 team, by World Motor Sport Council (WMSC), for spying another teams technologies. Such extreme measures taken by an organization like WMSC displays their professionalism and passion towards values and ethics. This is the exact trend we are talking about new generation organizations. They are fast, bullish and professional, but at the same time they want to project the image that “they care”.

The values followed in different organizations vary depending on the organization’s goals, objectives and even geographical location. A manufacturing company may not have the same values as a software company, and the values followed in India or Japan would be completely different from those followed in America, but the ultimate aim of having values and policies in place is to make the organization more sociable, improve the wellbeing of employees and thus improve productivity. Thus when there is a properly defined value system in place, a single person’s idiosyncrasies will not have an ill effect on whole organization.

Strong values form a strong foundation for an organization as well as future generations. The values shared by people working together soon become synchronous with those projected by the organization, and you start hiring people who share your values. Gradually this vicious circle transforms these very values into inevitable organizational values, which would be later immortalized into pictures, posters and plaques. Over the years these very values would become synonymous with the companies brand, thereby giving the customer, a feel of quality and satisfaction. Well, I guess now you know why Harry Potter chose Ollivanders – “Makers of fine wands since 382 BC” and not from some wanderer .

PS : This is one of my prize winning essays – September 2007 Alcatel-Lucent

Paulo coelho wrote the “The Alchemist” in 1988 . This famous book can be purchased from www.amazon.com at about 11$ and a second hand book will cost you around 2$. But can you get it for a cheaper price ? And hey I am not talking about those filthy pirated books ( which unfortunately I have read many ).

The answer is -

Of course you can . Read along.

Last Sunday I purchased an almost new, “The Alchemist”, original Indian edition costing around Rs212 (nearly 4$ ) for just Rs.30 ( nearly 75 cents). Surprised ??? Well , Welcome to Moore market – Chennai.

Moore Market is basically a sort of mall, only difference being that the products sold here are mostly second hand or previously owned stuff – mostly books. Does that mean that you will get only those torn, dull, old, edge-eaten-by-dog books here ? I would say , it purely depends on your shrewdness . Sometimes books which were not sold from bookshops directly come here and this market has close to 100 shops which sells new books, old books , (and yes !! pirated books) and even text books. Moore market also has some shops which sells old magazines. So the next time when you miss your 1991 National Geographic edition in which the cover page had your photo, well, you will know exactly where you might get another copy.

Also there are some shops in this market which sells old coins, antiques like gramophone, cameras etc. Even though I am not pretty much sure about the authenticity and price bargain, but still it’s worth a try if you are a collector of these things. The market is open on Sundays also. And beware of pickpockets and try to avoid late night roaming. Though the market is close to the railway station, this place can get very creepy after dawn and is a perfect place to get mugged.

My suggestion and strategy for bargaining –

Good condition used Novels – Rs40-Rs70 max

Technical / Engineering/ Medical Text books – 20-30% reduction can be expected.

Pirated books – Not more than Rs60-Rs80 and expect small prints and missing pages. (Surprisingly the pirated books are a measure of how famous a book/author is. I saw pirated copies of A Prisoner of Birth selling for Rs60 and its hardly months since the book was officially launched )

And, If you are not good at bargaining and if you are not specifically looking for a title, then, just out-side the market there are street hawkers with piles of book. Any book is Rs30-50 which will be marked. So dig the pile and who knows what treasure awaits you … You might actually get a hard bound Harry Potter for less than a dollar.

Check out Moore market map here.

Moore market

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