(S)hopping mad
INDU BALACHANDRAN
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Be prepared for a shopping maul, the next time you go to the Emirates.
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Photo: AP
Dubai: Where shopping is a way of life.
Everyone knows the origin of the name “Dubai”: it evolved from the motto of Shopoholics Unanimous: “Do buy”. So that’s why, when I went to the Emirates recently, people automatically assumed I would be manically racing f
rom mall to mall with my gleaming, supercharged, chrome-finished three-wheeler. The shopping cart.
Ha! Been there, regretted that, my friend.
Because the last time I followed the arrows from India all the way to the Great Shopping Festival, I stood in queues so long, I was sure I’d have had grandchildren by the time I reached the checkout counter.
Just pay half
I remember that in one gigantic store, it was so crowded with bargain seekers that no one was even risking being away at the trial rooms, for fear of losing out on the next bargain. I was quietly putting a leg into a terrific trouser, right there next to the shelves to try it for size, when I felt a tug. Another woman had put one of her own legs into a trouser — the same trouser. We fought like two wild cats over it but gave up when it split neatly into two — giving us one leg each. (Suddenly “Pay Half Only!” made sense.)
Anyway, after buying 10 assorted T-shirts (and uneasily thinking I may have got 20 of these at Fountain Plaza back in Chennai with just five minutes of bargaining), I left the mall, taking less than two days on the jam-packed roads to get home to my sister’s place where I was holidaying. The cruel sibling laughed seeing me collapse on her carpet with the weight of my bags.
To and fro
“But why do you think I bring an empty suitcase when I come to India every year? I get Dubai-type stuff so cheap in Chennai and Bangalore…”
“Yes, but look at this amazing top I got at the Emirates Mall! It has so much authentic designer French chic…” I said excitedly. My sister did as she was told and looked at the top. The label said “Made in India”.
Anyway, no more clothes on my trip this year, I declared. I would now only visit friends… So off we went to look up a pal who had left for Dubai “for just a couple of years to make some money and return”, and hadn’t returned for the next 30 years. So much news and happenings of so many years to catch up on!
However, we spent the entire first hour on the Number 1 Conversation Topic everywhere in Dubai: How Long It Took To Get Here. Usually everyone talks animatedly and simultaneously when this topic begins. As each vies to detail just how horrifying their own journey was, frequently peppered with phrases like “you won’t believe this” and “you can’t imagine this” even though there is evidence that we are all saying the exact same story. Dubai may be full of the upwardly mobile, but horizontal mobility is rare in the jammed streets. And in order to beat the rush hour (from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., and from 1.15 p.m. to midnight), thousands start out well in advance, causing…well you know.
Suddenly, there was only time left to do a quick tour of my friend’s huge, posh house with its plush décor and amazing conveniences. At one point, I exclaimed opening the door of a large, well-lit storeroom, neatly stocked with food for at least three or four months (in case World War III broke out? I wondered to myself). However, on closer look, it wasn’t a room at all. It was their normal, everyday refrigerator.
But obviously. In this land of milk and money, the supermarkets are stocked with the international dazzle of abundance. Every food item comes in three convenient sizes: XL, XXL and Godzilla, and to see is to buy. And the only way here to keep food bills down is to buy a heavier paperweight.
Wheels of life
That’s why it is said the most expensive vehicle to operate in Dubai, per mile, (no, it’s not the Hummer) is the shopping cart. By the time one is through with a Mall visit, the true Dubaiian would have spent nearly the GNP of an emerging African nation, picking up essentials like this month’s edition of a super-sized plasma TV for the bathroom, or a jewel-encrusted watch that costs more than it did to erect the Big Ben.
But I did find one item that one can save money on in Dubai — something we regularly buy here in India: garbage bags. With an average of 68 plastic bags that accumulate per normal shopping trip (even a small nimbu is individually put into a 2 ft x 2ft sturdy plastic bag at the Supermarket), it is indeed creditable that people in Dubai thoughtfully recycle these supermarket plastic bags and use them in their garbage bins at home.
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