Retail therapy-Bizarre affair

Today I will take you down the memory lane, away from the current mall mania and visit the streets of local bazaar frequented by your parents and you holding there hands looking around to catch a glimpse of goodies, meant for you or not meant for you. The very aura of different stuff hanging out of the shops along with the prospects of getting to savor the taste buds tantalizing chatpati chat karari and mouthful of golgappas/paani puri would lure you to accompany your mom/aunt. You would not be so materialistic to pay heed to the thought whether the shopping bags would eventually contain anything for you not. You would just be too exhilarated to experience the “experience” called “shopping” (sometimes, you too would get some little knick knacks by crying hoarse or throwing tantrums in the middle of the road…or may be not...)Once inside the shop, under the luxury of fans, you would be lost in the charm of eclectic mix of color, patterns and styles. Now, you must be sensing something bizarre about the whole bazaar affair I am penning. Ironically, if there was some thing that I disliked in the whole affair then it was the shopping experience itself of those days. Believe it or not the whole game of purchasing was driven not by the shopper but the shopkeeper – former being merely a puppet in the hands of the latter.After customary namaste and your telling what you want comes a question which any customer would take want to avoid but have to face nevertheless, what’s your budget. While old timers would defend it as a harmless request to process your need, I would term it as a forced ‘economic’ ranking of the customer. Next would follow the process of shopkeeper staking the range in front of you, out of which you would get to see one piece and the packets of the same in different colors would be displayed along side (meant to be opened only if you show some interest in the related piece or if the shopkeeper does not have too many customers to entertain). Meanwhile, you would endure his remarks / comments giving highlights of the range. And god forbid, if the stuff fails to impress you, you would be in dilemma how to confess nothing appealed to you and you want to run away. The shopkeepers would play with the customer’s guilt with great élan and emphasize how many pieces have already been shown to you for how long. Someone would have easily picked and liked something from best-of-the-class products he’s offering. Many a times money and products changed hands with lots of persuasion, pestering from the shopkeeper, which eventually did not go very well us…(and who the hell had room to spare for trials rooms).I loathed that kind of shopping and when I outgrew the childish rage, I stopped accompanying others. I have yet to meet someone who did not shop from Sarojini Nagar Exports market or Fashion street during high school/college days. Easy on pocket, with plenty of trails rooms, chic and happening. You outgrow them to simply because your literally become un”fit” for them ;). It became my safe haven at that time.Thank God for some mega mercies, mall culture has really caught up. And I have found refuge in retail therapy to outdo little trace of boredom that seeps in due to day-to-day routine. It’s such a comfort zone…I can enter and start sifting through material on my own, spend as many hours as I want under the comfort of AC, get assistance from customer care executives to fetch me outfits of my choice of color and size, go in and out of the trial room hundred times and if, by any chance, I don’t like what’s on their platter, I can come out of the showroom without carrying any guilt baggage… it means FREEDOM to me. So, what if it comes with little cost (within reasonable range…). I don’t mind. Do you?