Lit buffs' haunt Blossoms bookstore completes 20 years

Owner Mayi Gowda was studying engineering when he started a small shop on the footpath and discovered the joys of bookselling

Blossom Book House aka Blossoms has completed its 20th year. With two stores on Church Street, it is a favourite haunt for the city’s bibliophiles.

Started in 2002 by Mayi Gowda, an electrical and electronics engineering graduate, as a little 200 sq ft store in Brigade Gardens, Church Street (where Indian Coffee House is located now), it moved to the present store opposite Amoeba, on the same street, in 2004.

“At our first store, we barely had space for people to stand and browse, which made us look for a bigger store. We started off on the first floor and expanded to the other floors because of the reception,” he recalls.

Mayi Gowda, who hails from Rangasamudra, a village near Mysuru, used to sell books on MG Road’s pavement when he was a student.

“Until my third semester of engineering, I worked at a factory, attending college in the morning. I slowly started selling books, after seeing some booksellers on the pavements at Majestic. I dropped out of my course, but rejoined it soon after,” he says.

Mayi Gowda completed his course with flying colours, and got a job during campus placement. “But the magic of books took over and I wanted to continue in the book business,” he says.

Mayi Gowda, owner of the Blossoms bookstore

There were few second-hand bookstores then. “The only one at that time was Select Bookshop. My Brigade Gardens’ store had about 1,500 books, sourced from Avenue Road. Gradually, I started collecting books from Delhi, Chennai, and Mumbai,” he says.

Now, he has two stores on Church Street, and sells 32,000-40,000 books every month. Together, the stores house about six lakh books. “Now we get books from several places and publishers like Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Rupa,” he says.

The store also sells new titles. “At my first store, people would ask for new titles after picking up second-hand ones. Around 70 per cent of our books are old in the first store and 50 per cent in the new one,” he says. Old books are discounted by at least 40-50 per cent on the printed price.

Many well-known writers frequent the bookshop. “Some of our regulars include Anita Nair, Vivek Shanbhag and Vasudhendra, Ramachandra Guha, and Raghu Karnad,” says Mayi Gowda.

Achievement

Blossoms opened a second store in 2016, because of the rush during the weekends.

Mayi Gowda, a resident of HRBR Layout, says, “Nobody knows me, but everyone knows Blossoms. There are many who come from far and wide, because of the brand name. We expanded with a new store on the same street as we wanted people to enjoy browsing and hanging out. Having two stores of the same brand on one street is rare,” he says. The newer store, near the intersection of Brigade Road and Church Street, is three times bigger than the old one. “We allow our customers to roam around freely and read,” he says.

Pandemic rush

While most businesses saw a dip in sales during the pandemic, Blossoms saw a 20-30 per cent increase in 2021, according to Mayi Gowda.

“The first few months were really bad. After that, during the second wave, everyone started picking up more books. Much to my surprise, the sales figures increased,” he says.

‘Things won’t change’

Mayi Gowda says Blossoms will continue to buy second-hand books. “We will always have a huge pile of old books too,” he says.

For him, Bengaluru is a book-loving city. “It could be the cosmopolitan nature or the IT City tag, but we have a huge reading crowd. Earlier it was mostly 40-to-70-year-olds coming in, but now we see a lot of younger people too,” he says.

Bookstore facts

Why the name?: “I started from the pavement and blossomed from my first store in 2002 to a big one in 2016. My business ‘blossomed’,” says owner Mayi Gowda.

Most sold: Classics like ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, ‘Animal Farm’, ‘1984’ and young adult books like ‘Harry Potter’.

First book sold: How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Cheapest on the stands: National Geographic magazines for Rs 15.