Nullifying Love at Nalli's

I’m not saying that The Hindustan Times is generally full of a lot of great news in its 35 odd color pages, but the time of the year when its contents get reduced to just news about off season discounts and sales in Karol Bagh, is fast approaching. I’m thankful that my mum doesn’t read the newspaper. She’s not too much of a shopper, really, but I don’t fancy trips to places like Meena Bazaar and Nalli’s with her, even if it’s once or twice a year. She may not be tempted to buy all that is advertised in the papers, even if she gives it a quick glance, but let’s not take any chances.

There isn’t just one reason to why I hate this sale season. You may not share the same feelings as I do about the whole Delhi sale fest, but I’m sure your experiences must’ve been more varied than mine. Or, maybe you’re just a girl, you sissy pants.

One major reason for why I so tremendously loathe the shopping season is because no matter how much I dream about running into and having a bit of a future with some hot girl buying a Punjabi suit at Meena Bazaar or a Kanjivaram saree for herself at Nalli’s, the thought never materializes. I make it a point to dress up a little appropriately when I’m out shopping with my mum. And with “appropriately”, I mean taking extra pains to groom myself better by shaving on a Sunday afternoon, wearing shoes in place of chappals or sandals, and being extra cautious about wearing a perfume in such a way, so that my mum doesn’t notice that I’m wearing it, but the prospective pretty girl friend does.

I walk into either of the two aforementioned ladies’ stores with a subtle swag, the kind which shows the world that I’m the friggin’ daddy, yet helps maintain the poise of a good boy entering a place with his mother. I look around in a very non-suspicious manner, scanning all floors of the store while climbing up the stairs to the floor where things of my mum’s interest are stacked against the walls. Whatever my mum asks for at the store is normally available at one of the top floors, which makes her complain about having to climb the steps, and at the same time, relieves me of the pressure to come up with an excuse to go up to the floors above and check out for any “nice stuff” for my mum.

I notice a girl pointing at a saree, and asking the saree wale bhaiya to show it to her. The saree’s color is a specific blue that had caught my attention a few minutes ago. It’s a color that I won’t point out to my mum because I’m sure she won’t like it. But this girl’s choice is so much like mine! Her mum doesn’t look very scary either. But in less than a minute, her dad walks up to the place after having relieved himself at the store’s two square feet toilet. His gray hair and bald pate, along with the bushy mustache does not give a very gentle picture of his personality. It’s somehow hard to approach girls with their mothers only when their fathers are around.

There’s another girl trying to match a dupatta with her new suit, but as soon as she opens her mouth to speak, you decide it’s better to let her take the decision of what color goes best with her suit all on her own. On another floor, there’s a girl prettier than the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, but as soon as you look at the reds and pinks sprawled across on the white mattress in front of her, you know that she’ll be getting henna tattooed on half her body to match the designs on her saree in another one month.

It’s sad how the end of an academic year at schools or colleges never coincides with the off-season sale. I mean, even if it does technically, the end marked by the official farewell never does! So, all the eligible girls are actually shopping for sarees at these places during months when my mum is working on excel sheets at her office, and I’m complaining about how none of the hot girls ever take up CA as a career option.

Well, now that I’ve started talking about it, you should know that my sister is in the twelfth grade, and she had her farewell a week back. My mum found the time to take her shopping for a saree only two days before the farewell. They said it was really daring to make a purchase so late since the stitching of the blouse normally takes two days. But I motivated them enough to believe that it was nevertheless possible. (Muhuhahaha!)

I accompanied them to a store in Karol Bagh, late in the evening, after office hours. Should’ve known that all the girls who go saree shopping for their farewell parties do it at least a month in advance. No doubt that it saved my sister from all the jerks who’d have checked her out during the peak of the farewell shopping drama, but it also meant that there were no girls left for me to check out either! And before you decide to picture my face every time that the word “jerk” comes in front of you, thinking that my intentions hadn’t been any different, you should also know what followed. Not just did I have to sit there at the shop for more than two hours, constantly looking at my sister reject one saree after another, but I had to sit through one hundred and twenty minutes of looking at the salesman draping different sarees around his slender body, just to show to us that they looked really great when worn!

As you make up your mind about not thinking of me as a jerk, but just smiling and saying to yourself that I’m such an idiot, I should go ahead and say it again: I hate the off season sale fest in Delhi!

Image Source: sareedreams.com