(Issues) / 17 May 2012
The malls in Dubai don’t cease to amaze me even
after all these years, not just for their grandeur, but also for the wisdom I
gather every time I waltz through their aisles, wide-eyed and open mouthed. There
is something very enticing about hanging around the malls, an activity that is
boring to many and amounts to criminal waste of time and money.
Yes, it is a waste of time if you do it at a
time when you should be home attending to your children’s homework or working
out in the gym, not if you spend an empty weekend evening watching life play
itself out in its myriad colours and forms, taking in the amusement it caters
and just enjoying the diversion from the mundane. It is a waste of money if you
step into the stores, more hazardous if an innocuous window shopping stint
converts to a mindless buying spree of things you really don’t need, yet end up
buying just because your wallet allows you to.
Now that’s my advantage. My wallet is so
pathetically flaccid that I don’t step into most of the stores there,
especially those that sell designer stuff. Actually that makes a visit to the
luxury outlet completely risk free and allows me some vicarious joy. Yet I
don’t, because behind my weak wallet is an acute middle class sensibility that
clearly marks the places and things that are out of bounds for me.
Once, goaded by my sister who was on a visit, I
walked into an international accessories store. The store keeper was busy texting, his glance
flitting between the phone and us. We walked around reading price tags and
suppressing our reaction with great effort. Shock, surprise, self consciousness
– all camouflaged by our fake conversion. And then, almost at the instant that
my sister picked a bag, the sales person darted in, seized it from her hand and
said curtly, “you cannot take it ,” as if we were just ‘taking it’.
We could see the derision in his face, a look
that said that we didn’t belong in there. Or so it said, we felt. Didn’t I tell you about our middle class
sensibilities?
“What if I really wanted to buy it?” my sister
fumed as we sauntered out.
“Oh well, they can tell a serious buyer from an
idle browser. They know that people like us are not wired to make that kind of
spot, high value purchases.” I said wryly.
The incident made me reflect on how ceremonious
high value purchases in middle class families like ours are. It follows a
certain procedure and goes by the laid out rules of our household economy. We
first sow a seed of desire, covet it for prolonged periods of time, visit the
showrooms umpteen number of times, ask for the price, sigh and sough, set
ourselves a target date by which to build up the capital by scrimping and saving, and when we finally get there, make ourselves
feel like royals. It’s a triumph that has no parallel. Then there is the other
kind among us, the loan besotted sort. Though perilous when done in excess, the sense
of personal achievement one feels when the EMIs stop eating into the salary is
indescribable.
Even now, when I see a rich shopper come out of
a high end store, I imagine some day I will have the wherewithal and the mind
set to do the same. I will be so well heeled that Rolex, Rado or a Prado, I might
buy it in a trice. But then, I will miss revelling in the glory that comes at
the end of an elaborate ceremony of accomplishing desires that the heart had coveted
for long. I will miss the unique sense
of gratification that comes at the end of a long, arduous expedition to a dream
destination.
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