Shop till you drop...oops bore!

The wardrobe section of the room I stay in, yah exactly the same one where a mouse had taken shelter for a happy one month before I finally was able to find out the mystery behind the "rat-a-tat" sounds the wardrobe made and was able to drive it out of the house needed a desperate revamp. Well not that I am one of those shoppers who would love to splurge a mini fortune of their hard earned salary on buying clothes keeping up with the latest fashion trends and stuffs that Vogue magazine portrayed as the latest collection but still considering the fact that for the last 4 months I was actually surviving on just two formal trousers, when my office wanted me to wear formal clothes for 4 days in a week it was quite necessary that I do something to put me out of this poverty of clothes. Even the security guards who wore the same uniform everyday seemed to have a better assortment of black trousers as compared to the only one that I had. If the black trouser was a human with real feelings and emotions it was sure to come out in an open rebel for overuse and overexploitation. Considering the fact that all the stores had their year end sales running and all stores shreiking of offering 50% off with a miniscule "Conditions Apply" print that needs a magnifying glass to view, it was an auspicious time to go and eliminate the poverty stricken condition of my wardrobe.

So after office on Monday, I rushed to Forum and in a shopping effort that resembled winning the hot seat in the fastest finger fast, I was done with shopping for a whooping amout of close to 3500 rupees in a matter of less than 40 minutes and I had 3 T-shirts one which had a beer mug all over it, 3 formal shirts and 2 formal trousers to flaunt. The entire swiftness of the shopping episode reminded me of a disaster that happened just after the end of the mid term exams of the 4th trimester during my MBA days. An episode as much disastrous as being forced to see a movie with Jayalalitha as the female lead gave me a rude shock and petrified of shopping. The disastrous event was accompanying Gundu Patas a.k.a Aarti on one of her shopping sessions. A bunch of 2nd year MBA students who had all intentions of getting wild after a torturous mid term that had taken all its toll on us we landed up at Centrestage mall Noida. The journey part of it is also worth mentioning when you consider that Nishant's dilapidated Maruti 800 did not give up with the likes of Madhavi, Nami, Aarti, Anupama, Akshara, Nishant and me packed like sardines in the red 800. I was precariously seated somewhere in between Aarti and Nami's lap and I could not stop my head banging into the ceiling of the car every 3 minutes. Once in the mall, while every one of the other girls went to shop in Westside I was hijacked off the group by Aarti to go shopping with her. I thought it would be a regular thing which would max stretch to hopping around 3 or 4 shops and would result in a purchase decision. It started off with Westside where Aarti spent some half an hour giving me logical explanation about shaded, hues, cuts and styling. Though it really did not make any sense I just hoped she would like something. And she did like two tops on display and I felt the same as Dada would have felt on striking a century on debut and was rejoiced at the prospects of having a half hour shopping spree. But alas it was like getting bowled at 99 when she uttered in Tamil laced Hindi "Haan thik hi hai! Par utna khas nahi...Aur kahin chalkar dekhte hain.." I did not realise what I was getting into. It started from the ground floor of CSM(Centrestage mall) and went up to the 5th floor. Any store that seemed to have anything like clothes behind the glass veiled doors was Aarti's destination. We went to every branded, unbranded, semi-branded, in-house branded store. Pepe, Levis, Lee, Scullers, SF and a lot more of them just came and went on path for that one perfect top. Finally after 2 whole hours of running up and down the entire mall and visiting every store that it housed Aarti finally declared that enough was enough and she was going back to Westside to buy the same top that we had seen at the onset of our shopping excursion. I was speechless, dumbfounded, angry, tired and was bored as anyone who had had the luxury of listening to Vajpayee's ramblings for more than an hour. Finally Westside sold one more of its tops and I wasted close to two and half hours of my time running around the mall.

Aarti was full of praises about how I had not complained and how I was not the typical male who hated the favourite recreation of girls i.e. shopping though deep down I had this strong desire of choking her with the same top that she had bought. Now it is true that mom had well prepared me for all this kind of shopping excursions that females usually undertook by taking me shopping when I was just a child and finally treating me to an icecream, but still wasting so many precious hours of life over a top and that too without the regular treat of icecream was quite a painful torture. From then on I was the proverbial messiah who would go on any kind of shopping trip with any female species provided the female species did not force me to buy anything for them or for that matter me. Going shopping with Anu would involve a lot of approving and disapproving. Usually it only lasts one or two shops but she tries out a lot of things and always asks for approval. She took me once to a jewellery shop to get the upper cartilaginous part of her ear pierced. I was pretty much psyched out by the entire exercise and at one point of time I was assuring her and her dad on the phone that things would be ok though I was not at all comfortable seeing the rather horrific sight of seeing the cartilage being pierced through. Last time she came to Bangalore she was contemplating on getting a tatoo done and I was contemplating a sudden heart attack to avoid the torture of seeing a shreiking Anu and pacifying her. Then there is Akshara who shops more like a guy, never spending more than a few mintues finalizaing any purchase. I was overwhelmed when she was done with her shopping in less than half an hour. Then there is Sree who would give me a frantic call at all desperate moments to accompany her shopping. Last time was some 2 days before the new year eve when she desperately needed party clothes. Now my social standing is such that no body really bothers calling this rather abominable creature to anything that looks like a party. So hunting for party clothes was quite a disaster with me and her going down and up Commercial Street and Brigade road finding that ideal party dress that could bowl any guy out on new year's eve.

So finally I am most grateful to these women in my life starting from my mother who have made me immune to the shopping virus. A special thanks to Aarti who tested my patience to such great extremes that every other shopping excursion seems to be a cakewalk after CSM. I do not know if the patience of accompanying a female species would still persist post the very horrifying event of marriage when I would have to swipe my credit card out of a feeling of chivalry. Oh by the way forgot to add, even the ICICI credit card I applied for has not reached my hands though they shipped it ages back. As usual its stuck between Chennai and Bangalore...And I am still credit card less...anyone listening out there??