Living in an Indian IT city means overcrowded public places on Saturday and Sunday. A person eventually comes to terms with it, or starts avoiding it - like we did. We'd rush in on Saturday before afternoon, conduct a marathon run-through the super market, bill it quickly on one of the empty counters and practically sprint away. But there were always lazy days, when we would turn up at 7 PM, to find the place jampacked. We'd curse and curse and run through the crowd to get back home. The funny thing was the crowds kept increasing exponentially every weekend. When the supermarket opened we could leisurely stroll in and stroll out, but a few months down the line, every weekend brought thousands of people more than the previous weekend. So the super market started storing a lot of veggies - which was one of the reasons we went there.
Now though we are from the IT, we are not completely clueless as to what's going on in the world (unlike many of our compatriots who wear shorts to the super market but dont know that they should be picking up the Simla apple instead of the Australia/NZ variety). We wanted to buy local - but the local bazaars (Rythu bazaars) were far off, crowded and offered a mostly sweaty - stinky experience. And sitting in an AC environment for 5 days does not really condition you to sweating it out in the markets. So after a couple of valiant trys at buying local, we went right back to the supermarket - with its cleaned and packed greens and sweet-scented chuddy wearing crowd. Now other than the scent, there was no difference in the crowd composition. At the local bazaar, you'd have a person wearing a dhoti or pants in front of you - who is trying to pick up vegetables and doesn't give you space because he dint see you. The moment he sees you, he will give a smile and move back to accomodate you in the vegetable choosing ceremony. At the mall you'd have a hairy guy in shorts, wearing a branded chappal and tees and maybe a thick gold chain, reeking of having just returned from onsite, choosing tomatoes. He will see you and know that he is hogging the space - but he proves his standing in society by not moving away at all. He will stand, pick up tomatoes at a leisurely pace and leave only when he wants to. He wont step back for a lady because he believes in gender equality. Besides he has a visa stamped in his passport and that visa particularly states that he can stand hogging the entire supermarket if he wants to. And ofcourse he wont smile - because he knows that smiling is an admission of being equal to the receiver of his smile. So he stolidly stands his ground and if he is spirited enough, he may even elbow you out completely.
Most of the people visiting this huge mall on weekends are from the IT. We can conclude that because I frequently saw people from my office and my husband saw people from his office and the others smelled of being in IT. You dont get such a large collection of paunches and big backsides speaking to their kids in English in any other profession. We are like the chicken pox of the working world - we spread like an epidemic. But I digress yet again. At the AC'd market, the shelves holding imported vegetables and fruits are always a huge attraction. Imported broccoli, lettuce, Chinese pears, NZ apples, dragon fruits, canned meats, cereals, juices always sell like hot cakes or hot samosas (which is more relevant to India). Every buyer seems to be swaying to the mantra "If I have the money, I will spend it - without thinking where my purchase comes from - or what it will do to my stomach or my country or my earth." I admit that not everyone can spend time poring over the labels of each product to see if it is locally made, like I do. But atleast one should realise that having money gives you power to shape the world for your kids. Or that "with big money, comes big responsibility". (:-D too good an opportunity to resist plagiarism) For everybody is not given the power to sling a web. The power given to us is the capacity to generate money. And it matters where we spend it.
Now though we are from the IT, we are not completely clueless as to what's going on in the world (unlike many of our compatriots who wear shorts to the super market but dont know that they should be picking up the Simla apple instead of the Australia/NZ variety). We wanted to buy local - but the local bazaars (Rythu bazaars) were far off, crowded and offered a mostly sweaty - stinky experience. And sitting in an AC environment for 5 days does not really condition you to sweating it out in the markets. So after a couple of valiant trys at buying local, we went right back to the supermarket - with its cleaned and packed greens and sweet-scented chuddy wearing crowd. Now other than the scent, there was no difference in the crowd composition. At the local bazaar, you'd have a person wearing a dhoti or pants in front of you - who is trying to pick up vegetables and doesn't give you space because he dint see you. The moment he sees you, he will give a smile and move back to accomodate you in the vegetable choosing ceremony. At the mall you'd have a hairy guy in shorts, wearing a branded chappal and tees and maybe a thick gold chain, reeking of having just returned from onsite, choosing tomatoes. He will see you and know that he is hogging the space - but he proves his standing in society by not moving away at all. He will stand, pick up tomatoes at a leisurely pace and leave only when he wants to. He wont step back for a lady because he believes in gender equality. Besides he has a visa stamped in his passport and that visa particularly states that he can stand hogging the entire supermarket if he wants to. And ofcourse he wont smile - because he knows that smiling is an admission of being equal to the receiver of his smile. So he stolidly stands his ground and if he is spirited enough, he may even elbow you out completely.
Most of the people visiting this huge mall on weekends are from the IT. We can conclude that because I frequently saw people from my office and my husband saw people from his office and the others smelled of being in IT. You dont get such a large collection of paunches and big backsides speaking to their kids in English in any other profession. We are like the chicken pox of the working world - we spread like an epidemic. But I digress yet again. At the AC'd market, the shelves holding imported vegetables and fruits are always a huge attraction. Imported broccoli, lettuce, Chinese pears, NZ apples, dragon fruits, canned meats, cereals, juices always sell like hot cakes or hot samosas (which is more relevant to India). Every buyer seems to be swaying to the mantra "If I have the money, I will spend it - without thinking where my purchase comes from - or what it will do to my stomach or my country or my earth." I admit that not everyone can spend time poring over the labels of each product to see if it is locally made, like I do. But atleast one should realise that having money gives you power to shape the world for your kids. Or that "with big money, comes big responsibility". (:-D too good an opportunity to resist plagiarism) For everybody is not given the power to sling a web. The power given to us is the capacity to generate money. And it matters where we spend it.
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