Shopping

Shopping! A lot of shopping.

Once I started preparing for the wedding, first in the itenary was shopping. I thought I will do it sometime in mid January since I was not sure what my hip size would be then. But due to other logistics we decided to do it early. So I landed in Chennai over a weekend for shopping with my parents.

Destination: RMKV Silks

Usually I have heard real life experience from men as to how it would be to shop with women. So I was extra prepared, since I was with my mom, mom-in-law and The bride. We entered RMKV around Saturday afternoon. But she was smart* she had already selected the wedding saree. So we need not wait until we select one. [To brief: RMKV has a good bridal7 collection saree, that is one of the 'n' number of collection they have for the brides, Ideally including the designer silk and stuff. The shop has two floors packed with sarees] Everyone liked the saree that was selected. Now-a-days one has an option to keep the saree on them (the girl) and see in those big mirrors of how one looks when they wear it. We got the selected saree. So one saree down, and one more to go.

We decided to see the collections in both silk and designer silk. [Designer silk sarees are silk sarees that come with lot of work in it including glass, stones and chumki] We went to designer silk section and started to pull out one saree at a time and looked at it. The border design first, then the central pattern finally the color and lower border. Everything should match to their taste so that they would pick it. We started piling it on the table, suddenly we realized that the sales guy would not be visible on the other side if we continue. We were already two tea breaks down. :-) So we paused. End of day one.

Day two, we again went to the silk saree section and looked at more sarees. [Pack your bag with few cans of Red Bull] My job was simple, I have to say how the sareee looks. Frankly I loved all the sarees since it was so colorful. [No wonder the 24 bit true color RGB palette will not be sufficient] They got sarees in all the colors I have ever seen or can think of. So finally after looking at close to 90 odd sarees we narrowed down to 2 sarees. Since the shop had yellow lighting inside, we decided to get select the saree after looking it in day light. :-) They got an option to take it outside and see it. Selected the second one. (*claps*) Yay! We are done.

There is a row of chairs placed in the centre of that hall with its back facing each other. It was an interesting sight. Its for the men to rest and think about killing time. I saw faces that read "nothing". One guy was solving a whole book of Suduko, another baby sitting, another was looking at the roof and counting the bulbs.

Its Sunday afternoon by now. They also decided to get pattu vestti sattai (silk dhoti and shirt). Whoo! Finally I get my turn *grin*.

Me: Pattu vesti kaamiga!

(Show me silk dhoti, show me all designs you got!!!! I should at least look at half of what the bride looked)

Sales Guy: What color sir, White or Sandal?

Me: Sandal would be good.

Soon he picked one from the right hand corner and one from the rack below. Placed it in the table. I was still looking at the racks for more. He then made me look down at the two dhoti's shown. 

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Me: Both looks good, are there more designs?

Sales Guy: Thats all. Only two designs. One with diamond border and another with wave border.

(Thunder on the groom's head)

Me: you're sure, its only two!

Sales Guy: yes

I choose one. Then I was told to get a silk towel with it. Then I turned to that guy and asked, "show me designs in silk towel". He replied, "no designs and all sir. There is only one, and it will fit with all."

(Bride from behind, "It seems like the choices are less". Groom wonders, "choices..") :)

Then we needed to get a silk shirt. Soon we were in the 3rd floor for the same. I did not have any hope in the shirts section, after the trauma in the dhoti's section. As expected, only two shirts were close to the dhothi's color. Rest were all like the ones I see in Ramarajan film including golden yellow, dark green etc. I choose one. End of shopping for the groom, and we clocked 15 minutes 20 seconds. :)

We were finally done with shopping in RMKV.

P.S. Men, everything within square brackets is FYA.

Er, you dint say that

Experience one:
I walked into a grocery store the other day, the usual weekly visit. I picked up some biscuits and toiletries. Then, I went to the deodorant section and noticed a bright label saying "buy 2 get 20% off". I thought that was cool. I picked up an orange color and a silver color (they were flavors that pleased me a little). After waiting in the long queue for billing, I got the things billed. Strangely I noticed in the bill, both the deodorants were billed in the actual selling price. Annoyed and tired, I walked to the guy in the billing section and asked him to reason out for the 20% discount that was missing. He wittily replied back,"Its only when you take both in the same flavor". WTH.

Experience two:
One would have seen the latest Airtel ad were a girl and her friends save a paper boat to float in heavy rain. Its for their new connection plan called, "Special 5". I read the specification of the plan in the website and it was good when compared to the corporate plan I hold. I then called up customer care to change my plan. Swiftly she replied back, "Sir its not available for corporate plan holders". WTH++.

Later one of my colleague walks to my place and says, Did you know there is a per day rental of Rs 1 for each of the numbers you add as part of the Special 5 plan. So its like Rs 5 per day! Whooot! Then went back to airtel.in again to find there is a faq section (yeah, you read that right :)) that says about the rental charges. WTH++.

The whole point here is, its sick of these brands to do this kind of false marketing. Letting the customers know only the nice side of it in big banners with a small * sign at the end of each line and its left to them to explore the ugly side of it. These leeches will not let you go unless they are happy. So lesson here is to change oneself to be super smart when you spend on things.

Offer Sale Discount

If you had been in Bangalore, You are easily distracted by those vinyl boarding and neon lamps of all those offers in various stores and outlets. But are these real discounts or value addition to the consumer? I really doubt.

They only act as a pushing factor for us to take the plastic cards out of our wallet. Outside banner says 50% off, once you get inside they say its only on certain commodities and other goods are with less offer. Many places like Westside failed to impress with variety and most awaited winter wear. Nike said shoes only above 6K have these offers. So basically was a disappointing evening of shopping, except for the colorful crowd. Still came up with some points that all can note during this month of shopping fiesta.

1) Go for quality, most places it would be clearance sale. So quality reduces.
2) Places where cloths are dumped in large, you might easily get deceived by a defective piece.
3) When you are paying using your credit/debit cards, make sure you get the card back after swiping and cross check the amount in printed in customers copy you get. Also check the transactions online.
4) When you get many things each would result in small bags, so be careful that you rigidly hold all bags together. Better option would be put the smaller bags inside the larger bags and carry one.
5) When you goto a restaurant or any other shop make sure you carry all the bag again.
6) Don park your bike in a hurry in NO-Parking area.
7) Don accompany a girl, its like chaining yourself to a lamppost. :) Amen.

P.S: This is my first scheduled post. :)