Saga de Shopping...

Sometimes, you are compelled to do things you never like to do or you never want to do. For me, shopping is something I never like to spend/waste my time at. But I was compelled to go shopping against my will and wish...

This morning, when I woke up, election results already started coming out and the popular party was running ahead. By the noon, it was the running ahead in 60% of seats and thus, there was no more need to be in front of TV and thus, we left for the shopping.
We first visited Gallops mall... one of our favorite mall where we used to hang out last year.
I was visiting this mall after a long time and was expecting some changes in it but there were none visible except lots of people. The crowd was everywhere and first we thought that it could be because of Sunday and Xmas holiday but then we found out that some drawing competition was going on for school children on ground floor and first floor.







It was very interesting to see these school children engrossed into painting on a busy Sunday.
We shopped at Globus and Lifestyle for some cloths and other items. I have realized that I am a quick shopper and would not want to spend a second thought on the cloth I liked at first sight. I then go for the trial and if it fits me, I just buy. I know its not a right way of shopping but that's what "L**E at first sight" is!
On first floor, we came across a bridal wear shop and a nice dress was displayed there. It was beautiful enough to make me stop and take its picture and decide about to buy it for someone who is expected to announce her marriage soon.

Of course, picture quality is not very good but the dress was fabulous. While I was taking this picture, a lady from inside the store rushed to us and stopped us taking any more pictures saying it was restricted. Hmm... this is surprising and reminded me about many threads on www.dpreview.com about photography in public places. I never thought that Indian malls will be similar rigid about photography inside mall.
From Gallops mall, we drove to Iskcon Mall and continued the shopping saga. This mall was remarkably less crowdy and we had a good time loitering around.


Food court of this mall was small but had interesting stalls offering some great verities. The smell of the food made us stop there and have a lunch there. I just had a water melon juice though.

On the way back, we came across Giordano shop and I was very happy to see Giordano in India. It is one of my favorite shop to buy cloths in Singapore just like GAP in US and to see it in India is indeed cool.
By the time we returned home, there was a big dent in my pocket :(
Oh, few days back, I was again "compelled" to be at Jade Blue. It was interesting and "first time" experience for me to be in a groom wear section. I was very surprised to know that a groom dress can cost Rs. 50,000 for a simple looking piece like this.

The ones shown above were in the price range of Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000. There were other groom dresses which were tagged at Rs. 200,000+ and I had no courage to even take their pictures. The ones in below pictures cost not less then Rs. 3000 which are "garba" kurtas.

It seems that this inflation of the price is mainly due to the huge influx of NRI shoppers. For an NRI from UK, a pound will get him/her Rs. 80 and thus, its just 35+ pounds for a garba dress for him. Though the dress is not worth that price, he/she wont bother either to bargain for the price or to try somewhere else for a better deal. And as Gujarat is flooded with NRIs these days, shop owners don't care for local shoppers and have inflated prices to milk out NRIs.
Anyway, I am happy that I could finish some of my shopping during this weekend. In coming days, I will have a lot to work on.