majestic

The price charged by the retailers in KSRTC bus stations are different from what is printed as MRP. Pic: Shree D N The retailers in almost all the bus stops operated by Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) charge upto 25% more than the Maximum Retail Price for the consumers. The shop keepers demand the excess charges and deny the customers goods on MRP, quoting additional charges for cooling, electricity and bribes.  Even a Rs 10 chocolate or a biscuit packet is charged above MRP. Most customers have resigned to the fact that the cooling charges on soft drinks are…

Plaza Theatre (pic: Amoghavarsha) It was 10 pm on a summer in 1990’s. Kiran, a 10-year-old boy living in Srirampuram of Bengaluru, remembered his grandma all of a sudden, and started asking for her. When he didn’t see her in their home, he started creating ruckus by crying and repeatedly asking for her. Finally one of his uncles took him to his grandmother - who was watching the second show in Geethanjali Theatre (now Big Bazaar in Malleshwaram) along with few other family members! Such was the craze of watching movies in theatres, in those days. Some people visited theatres…

The Greek word Oligarchy means 'Government of a few rich people for their own advantage'. It was coined by the philosopher Aristotle 2300 years ago (he also coined the word Democracy). An Oligarch is a very rich businessman or businesswoman with a great deal of political influence. For convenience, we'll shorten the word to Olly.Karnataka politics has traditionally been funded by various lobbies of Ollys like the liquor lobby, the mining lobby, real estate lobby, and the contractors' lobby (in urban bodies elections). When a politician needs money to fight an election, an Olly funds him, and the Olly in…

In 1967, Suresh Shah, a Gujarati by native, started Sapna Book house in Majestic, around 100 square feet. Today the same book store is set up in a multistoried building in Gandhinagar. It is claimed to be India’s largest book mall by Limca book of records as well as India book of records. Nitin Shah. Pic: Abhishek Angad And 45 years later, it opened its eighth book store in Karnataka and 6th in Bangalore. This is in the time when book stores like ‘crossword’ recently shut down one of the stores in Bangalore. This may be attributed to the age…

Gandhinagar locality is one of the oldest localities of Bangalore and is the centre of trade, commerce, entertainment and tourism. All the old business streets like Chickpet, Balepet, New Tharagupet, Avenue Road, Cottonpet, Raja Market and so many other hubs are in this locality. It separates Bangalore North and West from Bangalore South and East and hence acts as the main link between these zones. Despite so many important factors, this locality became popular mainly due to a record number of cinema houses that were located on the main road, as well as the surrounding roads. In fact Gandhinagar was…