Mohan Building In Chikpet Is Your Gateway To South Cotton Sari Shopping On A Budget

Most of us in Bangalore have heard of Chikpet. This place is considered a hub of  wholesale markets. Be it for lights, furnishings, garments or jewellery, the list is endless. Shopping happens here at the best bargain prices and rightly so. Naturally, when it comes to saris, there’s a market for that too in Chikpet. The big lane that connects Iyengar Road to Avenue Road is home to the finest sari retailers and wholesalers in Bangalore. From chic sari showrooms to hawkers selling accessories, you can find it all here.

The best way to go about it is on foot. But let me warn you that exploring this lane on foot is quite a task as the place is almost always swarming with shoppers. Being a fan of South Cotton saris, I’ve managed to discover  a couple of places for buying cotton saris in good old Chikpet. Some where on this lane is an old decrepit complex called Mohan Building. Inside it a bunch of good sari shops. 

I’ve been visiting this store for the past 7 years and can vouch for their quality. You can get cottons as well as cotton silk saris here along with south cotton bed-sheets and bedcovers. They also keep mundus for men and some cheaper versions of the Kasavu {Kerala saris}. The salesmen are friendly and will be willing to help you gladly. Specify ‘cottons only’ because they have a huge range of polyester saris as well, that are much cheaper but not the real deal. Tie and die, Coimbatore cotton, Kanchee cotton, Pochampalli are some of the varieties they usually keep. You can also get cotton silk blouse pieces separately. They also keep fine quality cotton underskirts that you can instantly match with the sari that you purchase. Bargaining doesn’t happen unless you do a bulk buy.

These guys also keep the latest designs in South Cotton. They have half & half sari patterns too that are pretty new. Also, a good variety of Chennai check saris, which look lovely. Quality may vary from piece to piece but cottons are mostly good. Most saris have blouse pieces attached but they also keep cotton blouse pieces separately. Bargaining doesn’t happen here. But there’s no harm in trying.

Apart from the first two there are many other shops here that have more or less similar stuff. In case you don’t like anything in the ones above, you may want to do a quick scan of  V Sreenivasan& Son(No 799), Sri Velmurugan Textiles (No 800), P Thandava Mudaliar & Sons (No 803)

Mohan Building has a lot of these shops that are popular amongst their regular clientele’ Once you visit you may end up having one of these as your favourite go to store for all cotton saris. The place has a certain old world charm that is difficult to miss and reminds you of the old ‘bazaars’ of India.