Shopping with mom

Every Wednesday, I quickly finish my dinner, hurry up to brush my teeth, and get into my green pajamas as soon as possible. I keep two bags and two hundred and fifty rupees ready in my hand. As soon as the silver-grey Titan clock, hanging in my living room two-and-a-half feet above the wooden table which holds the Samsung television, strikes 8:45pm I leave for nearby market along with my mom. It is time now for some weekly shopping in our local Wednesday market.

I do not like shopping but when it is about shopping with mom, I just can’t stop myself! After all, shopping with mom is a great fun. Be it the purchasing of weekly groceries, cosmetic items, some new clothes, a pair of new shoes, good electronic items, interesting books, etc, it is always worth the time. She visits shop after shop and looks over a hundred different varieties before picking up the masterpiece. I sincerely want to learn the way she bargains with the shop keeper and gets 800 Rs bag for 300 only. ‘bhaiyya dekho theek theek laga lo.. ye wala dikhana! Achcha wo wala dikhao to..‘. She bargains with an un-matching flattering skill, keeps on telling me in between why is this good and why on earth is this bad. Why to choose this and why to reject that! Though yes mom, I still do not know the difference between chiffon, cotton, silk, and georgette. And also I do not know how to identify which brinjal is good and which is bad! 

And the moment we get tired of it, then just one plate full of ‘moong-daal-ke-laddoo-with-grated-raddish-and-hare-dhaniye-ki-chutney’ is enough to rejuvenate both of us! They are extremely tasty and simply amazing!

But why do I like shopping only with mom? I guess the answer is not so difficult.

Dad leaves no chance to make the experience as much boring as possible with his I-will-talk-in-a-virtually-non-existent-volume, will-not-argue-with-the-shopkeeper and will-not-stay-at-a-shop-for-more-than-five-minutes attitude! Statistics bear testimony to the fact that of all the things he had purchased on his own, 95% of them were very bad! And I guess all men including my dad have I-feel-embarrassed-in-returning-a-purchased-object-even-though-it-costs-me-millions attitude!

While it is boring to shop with dad, it is a completely different experience to shop with my sister. We would walk at speed of ten steps in a minute, keep on laughing for the whole way, argue at the shop- I want this, you take that- fight with each other and both return empty handed.

So mom! You win clearly!