Who Says They Don't Spend in Malls?

See the rush in this mall? And I thought people didn't have money!

Apropos of my post that appears here, where I lamented, wrongly, that there’s nobody to buy from malls, now, I, have to eat my words. It’s one of life’s wrong judgements that poor Johnnie can’t swallow for being too bitter to swallow and too sweet to spit, as a Malayalam saying goes (Kaichittirakkanum vaiya, madhurichittu thuppanum vaiya). Yes, there indeed is money in malls.

My clothes were getting worn out and I needed new feathers, of the corporate kind, pronto. The corporate gypsy is on the move again, and the new job is up the managerial ladder, so, a wee bit of formal dressing would be required. So I repair to the mall to look around. And the best way to spot the place where a discount is going on is to look at the milling crowds inside. I mean there’s some telepathy or psychology, or some other hi-falutin’ “logy” is at play, but what the heck, I jumped in to hunt for my favourite rags.

So like a shark homing in on a bloody piece of meat, I charge into this Kouton store where people were rummaging into clothes carelessly strewn in heaps on the floor, hunting, grabbing, searching, like there was some kind of treasure hunt going on, that too, a treasure hunt of comely young ones.

So, unwittingly, I too rummage through the pile of clothes to find the perfect corduroy trouser I have always wanted, in the shade I wanted it in, which is plain black. The prices were amazing, almost 66 per cent discount, and, unknowingly a gleeful war cry leaves my lips before this bunch of bargain hunters salivating like Pavlovian dogs.

Good old Pavlovo-vich, don’t you turn in your grave, but we all are living proofs that your theory, remember the one which made dogs salivate when only you only sounded a bell? Yes, we are easily attracted to the conspicuous consumption of malls. So I have some chaat, and as if this wasn’t enough, some corn with pepper and assorted masala.

Very soon I was conspicuously consuming a lot of very foolish things. I played cricket in a pitch with a net around it, bought a couple of shirts, ties (my new job requires them), and almost bought a pair of expensive shoes.

With me around who says multiplexes don’t have business.