Shopping

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I don’t think we need a Socrates to ask why do you work hard and what will you do if you earn more money. The language, accent and phraseology might have changed but the basic answer remains almost the same. Money was always used for security; the food shelter-dress security was the minimum need that was hard to get. Today people live in a consumer society and the products available are almost nightmarish in their variety. From roadside vendors to big Malls wherever one goes one sees men and women in colourful attire bending over counters on which salesgirls pile up various products- from traditional, ethnic designer fashions to eccentric baggy trends. This is not to say that only fashions interests people. Music, art, designer cards, picture books of all kinds and food parks or flower and fruit exhibitions, wherever the fancy leads, people flock together. New tablets, phones and any new electronic gadget attracts crowds of buyers. Only new books are perhaps not awaited in feverish eagerness unless it is a Harry Potter. Why this craze? The answer is simple: people have more money; easy money. The wives of officers and other professionals whose ‘extra’ income is far in excess of their legitimate dues, their wives and children go for shopping in their craze for new versions of everything. The TV changes every year, so is the case with refrigerators and even micro-ovens. This scene in all cities on Dhanteras is mind blasting. Why?

Is it like King Lear saying - reason not the need? We are superfluous in almost everything. Food, clothes, home decor, home appliances and even bed covers and lamp shades bore us in a few days. What to do when we get bored? Go for shopping, for the eyes are now our minds. The eyes are no more for nature’s beauty. Nature’s rivers, forests, wild beasts, lakes and dolphins are now in videos. If we find time we may watch them. But the fun of living is in the malls. We have no time for a leisurely chat with friends. In any party we see people busy with their cell phones. All are busy. Distraction is the only diversion. Those who go visiting places, they too tick off place names and capture the scenes in their video camera. The calm contemplation is only a bohemian phrase. We don’t have time even for foreplay in love making. We are alwa8ys in a hurry. A funeral dirge too is boring even if the body in the grave is our dearest soul mate. Time itself is impatient to cause tremors in our impulsive minds. Shopping therefore is a welcome distruction, a relief from the tedium of life’s varied transactions.

The other day I was in a Mall, well that is an understatement. It was a city in itself. A star hotel. A theatre for special- you know what- films, a large swimming pool, a gym, a conference hall and a sprawling high rise five tiered Mall larger than Macy’s. I was interested in buying some books and wanted to go to a book shop. My companion, a person I worship in my heart, insisted that we go to that Mall where the whole world was available. I quipped – if the whole word is there are we visitors from another planet! She looked at me with wide bright eyes and smilingly said, yes we are from the Moon. What a fall, from Moon to a Mall! No, no it is a rise from dreams to the spread of reality. I stopped arguing knowing pretty well what her reaction would be. We entered the fashion section where my eyes fell on a simple yet elegant saree and whispered, hey, it would be a tribute to your beauty. She gave me a baleful look: what this fabric and this colour! Are you  a true connoisseur of beauty? What do you know about sarees? This will make me look pale. I was silenced. She moved from salesgirl to salesgirl and I meekly followed. The forenoon lapsed into the afternoon, her saree selection could not begin. I was bored stiff. Hunger raised my acid level. I mildly proposed, come let’s at least eat. Eat? What is life meant for eating only?

No my dearest, life is meant for shop hopping, stall hopping and rejecting Ritu Bery or Satish products. I therefore propose some real shopping, come. O’ books! No my boy all work and no play makes Jack - you know what. You read books which make you physically dull and mentally preoccupied. You simply wander like a Somnambulist in unreality. What else is there except unreality?  When you see your reflection in the crystal waters of the pool you feel like Narcisus: Is that real? When you see the morning sun the scarlet ball raising its arc in the east, you want to use it as a flash light for your night walks: Is it real? When I hold you in my arms you become a beautiful sod, speechless with eyes closed and I whisper all my love in inanities: Is that real? When you read an epic you are stunned by the grandeur of the palaces and the heroic display of swordsmanship and start day dreaming that you are a Ulysses or Arjun: Is it real? Ok stop, she said and asked, what do you want now?

Let’s go shopping. We will buy peace from the mountains, rhythm from the lake shores, beauty from  the hot springs- she stopped me asking – and Love?  Love is only you I cannot buy you. No mall can hold my love as a designer’s delight. Love is where shopping ends. Let’s not talk shop any more.