In a shopping mall.......

Today when I went around the shopping mall, I realized that I was enjoying the shopping. There was not much to buy so I watched others filling their trollies. Then I remembered my first shopping experiences.

I'm amazed at the way my life has changed with time..

In my childhood as other girls of those days, I too never went to any shops. Our clothes were bought by mother and her sisters. We all had enough gold jewellery, that too was selected by them. I remember the enthusiasm they had in shopping clothes and jewellery. It was a celebration for them .

No women in the family went to provision store or vegetable market. During weddings, shopping was a grand event. Only on those days married girls and the bride to be, were taken to shops. I too went to the textile shop and the jewellery shop just before before my wedding.

After marriage, I was taken to a place unknown and unheard…father bought a map of India to find out the place….and he cried when I left on the 15th day after marriage, to such a far off unfamiliar place.

The place was Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh. We had to travel by train, K K Express, 3 days to reach Itarsi. Then another train to Burhanpur. It was a very small town and the only vehicle that went through the roads were the “Two wheeled Horse-drawn vehicle” called “Tonga” in Hindi and “Kuthira vandi” in Malayalam. There were also Bullock carts and human pulled carts and some bicycles.

My husband had a room in a Palacial house of Bohra Muslims…He was giving Rs.10 as rent..There was a Dargah or place of worship of the Muslims. Double storied building with many rooms. Rooms had large stained glass windows in vibrant colors and Italian tiled flooring. The wooden carved doors had brass handles and curtain rods were in beautifully designed brass. The building was hundreds of years old and the land lady had no money for maintenance. So she kept many tenants.

My husband took me along the roads of the small shopping area of the town. The crowd, the dust filled and dirty roads were nowhere near my dreams to have any liking for shopping. Many varieties of food were cooked in the open and people eating the hot snacks on the road itself, was an amazing sight for me. The restaurant like shops were adjacent to each other and the air was filled with flavors of different sweets, unknown to me. Gradually I too relished on Gulab jamoons and Paani puris and kachoris.

The shopping for vegetables and provisions I disliked mainly because of the dust and foul smell of the market. Water was a rare commodity for the people of Burhanpur. Rain was something very rare. People collect water when ever the Municipality was kind enough to send water through common taps on the roads. The taps inside the houses produced sounds, but no water came out of it.

I lost all enthusiasm in shopping…….I didn’t even know the price of anything, rice, oil or sugar. So my husband took over the job of providing the commodities and I was happy to remain home and cook. Today when I saw the different varieties of green chillies neatly displayed in the vegetable section in the shopping mall, I remembered the Burhanpur market ..33 years might have brought drastic changes to Burhanpur too…..But I have yet to look back and find when I got this passion for shopping……