Why Are Our Malls So Loud!

As we have said before, we find malls relaxing, so we wander around, have a snack and walk out again when we get the time, and these days we don't buy much, as an expensive trouser we bought at a so-called "sale" bled colour, shrank, and made us look uncouth and uncool when we wore it. So, it's finito to shopping for us, but we still hang around Raghuleela mall, because we worked close to this shopping extravaganza, and we stare at its atrium, and we stare some more at the clothes and wonder what we would look like in them, and then we walk out, away from these meretricious things.

Makes us wonder why our malls are so loud, the one above even had a disc jockey playing earsplitting music, so we couldn't talk to the sales men, couldn't browse in peace, couldn't meet with the inner self as we perambulated around this mall by the rail that Raghuleela actually is.

Money-loving Dhansukhbhai approves of what we do, we guess. He says malls are for foolish people, he prefers his Cambridge shirts and trousers, cheap, a spot loud, even though it might be. Bless him.

I keep a close watch on people in malls, I know I would be least conspicuous as we observed them and here's what we think. People who buy in malls are people from out of town, you know the small town types who come to Bombay with wads of money tucked in their mundus and dhotis? Yes, they are. We saw a couple of "achayans" from Kerala and immediately guessed who they might be: rich rubber plantations owners and cashew and pepper traders, out to a wedding of someone in the family in Bombay having enough time to gallivant and even more money to spend. And they wore crisp mundus and starched shirts, and their women looked like they walked straight out of the Jayanti Janata Express or the Netravati Express, as the case may be.

"Aiiyo, achayo, enthundu vishesham," before they could smile broadly and say these words, we exit, and make a beeline for the exits.