At loss

I am truly at loss. I have been asked many a times to play Raju the tourist guide especially in madras for my friends and sometimes their parents. I generally take pride in being able to make sight seeing trips pleasurable and not too over exerting bearing in mind various illnesses or plain old age. However, my current set of clientele is totally different! They are just not interested in sights!!!

Nonsense you say. Well let me tell you neither the castle nor the museums and not even the parliament has any sort of pull for them. Now what do I do?!!! :(

They like shopping and spent the entire day hitting retail parks yesterday, since I was invited to take part in this mega shopping exercise I tagged along too. Totally at loss as to what to say or how to respond I felt gauche. For me shopping is primarily utility oriented, clothes gone old refill them, bed-sheets gotten stained replace them, groceries and household items. Yes I do indulge in paintings and sometimes showcase items but these are not done at the scale which I witnessed yesterday.

Consequently I am not a discerning shopper, I buy what catches my eye and not necessarily what is in fashion or is of the best quality. So when uncle and aunty popped some item in front of my eyes now and then and asked me, “So, what do you think?” I was at loss for words and was often enough responding with a neither here nor there answer – “Interesting!” followed with a nod of my head.

Every shop in the retail park was entered into and every article examined, I counted to 100 forwards first and then backwards and still had 4 hours time left on my hands!

I am mortified to say that when the shopping party decided to move on to the next retail park I slinked my way out of the trip and ran back home. Of course the excuse I used was that Shaiwal would be coming home soon and he starts beating me if I don’t have any snacks ready to eat at the time. At last benefits of matrimony. :)