The thrills of offline shopping

Is there anything more thrilling than a new frock?

The English language is bereft of words to describe the adrenaline rush and the bright flush on a woman’s face when a newly made dress fits her perfectly. How a few yards of fabric can lift a woman’s spirit is something that no man can understand.

In the pre-e-commerce era, one of the most awaited rituals at my home was the annual Deepavali shopping spree. The mothership would drag us to the nearest garment store to purchase “dress materials.” The shopkeeper’s eyes would light up when he saw us all. He knew that it would be a good day for the cash register. He would attempt to speak in broken Tamil to impress us. “Romba nalla material madam. Rajsthan le vardu. Ek dum first class“, he would remark. Of course, my mom would pretend to be unimpressed. She would look up and down at the fabrics stacked on all the shelves and sulk. Observing her facial expression, the shopkeeper would use his brahmastra. “Madam…wait madam …fresh pieces today morning coming from Surat,” and would direct the teenage helper in his shop to bring the “acchhe saaman” for display. And when the new brown carton was opened in front of our eyes, my mom would look at me and comment, “See, now he opens the good stuff.” A good hour later, after finalizing our purchases, it was “bargaining time.” This is when I would pretend to be very interested in a lizard crawling across the wall to avoid the sheer embarrassment of the mothership bargaining with the store owner. 

Now that shopping was done and dusted, the next activity was the trip to the tailor. My tailor was a skinny man who would always be busy or at least pretend to be. He would always be marking some measurements on a piece of cloth or cutting it. The moment I walked in, he would look up to see who it was, give a small grunt, and then get back to whatever he was doing. But he was the best in my area, and you must endure minor inconveniences if you want to wear your dream dress on Deepavali day. 

Thanks to my trendy friend, I was educated about the different technical terms in the tailoring world. “Hand embroidery,” “neck piping,” and “boat-neck” were some of the buzzwords of the day. However, all my enthusiastic suggestions would be shot down by the gentleman who would snort and say, “channag kaanala madam.” He was probably trying to make his life easy. Still, the only other tailor in the surrounding areas was doubly expensive, and convincing the mother to part with a few extra bucks was a great ordeal. 

Now came the most challenging phase of the entire activity – waiting! The date of delivery was often ten days away. But what if it was really ready in two days and the tailor was buying extra time? The next few days were spent volunteering for activities I usually wouldn’t care about. For a girl who didn’t know the difference between toor dal and chana dal, I would hurry to the nearest department store to purchase some when we ran out of pulses. Much to my mother’s surprise, I would volunteer to buy our daily quota of Nandini milk from the nearest parlor. All these trips would necessarily involve a detour to the tailor’s. I would deliberately slow down and glance at the display window to see if my new kurta was among them. More often than not, it would be missing. After the promised deadline of ten days had passed, I would rush to the tailor with crisp notes in my purse and demand the clothes. “Hemming baaki ide, evening banni,” he would occasionally remark. On a luckier day, the crisp new kurtas would be neatly folded and packed into a brand-new plastic bag and handed over.

Oh, the joy of running back home, trying on the outfits, and modeling them to the home audience of my sister, mother, and dad! “Of course, it’s good. After all, the tailor is my selection“, would be the reply from the mother. The father would briefly take his eyes off the television and shake his head in approval. My mind would be racing ahead to see if matching earrings were already available for the outfit. If not, a mental trip to Malleshwaram would already be planned.

Fast forward to the present, and I’ve more or less embraced the convenience of online shopping. I like that a new dress is just a few clicks away. I do like how the parcel is home-delivered. I do like how I can save time, energy and fuel by not stepping out in the boiling sun. However, I do miss the simple joys that offline shopping offers. On one aimless browsing session, I discovered that one could buy “dress materials” or fabrics online and choose to get them stitched by a local tailor. Suddenly, my eyes glistened. Multiple clicks and OTPs later, voila, the order was placed, and the item was hand-delivered a couple of days later. The child in me was once again excited at the prospect of choosing between boat-line necks and bell sleeves. I was on top of my fashion game this time and ordered a pair of palazzos and an umbrella-cut gown. “One week, ma’am,” the new tailor remarked as he scribbled the delivery date on the bill. Strangely enough, the anxiety and excitement of childhood came back to haunt me for the next week. Would the new dress fit well? What if he mixed up the cowl neck and collared neck? Did I choose the right color palette? Despite my hectic schedule juggling work, a toddler, and mundane household chores, I still had time to worry about my new clothes. 

The D-day arrived. A WhatsApp message from the tailor confirmed that the order was ready to be picked up. Nervously, I collected the parcel, managed a weak smile, and headed home. Immersed in my thoughts, I unexpectedly bumped into a fellow apartment-mate who wanted to socialize by complaining about Bangalore’s unseasonal heat. “Really, woman! I need to get home”, I mumbled in my head. A smile and a few words later ( “I know, climate change, too hot”), I rushed home, carelessly took the kurta out of the bag, and ran my fingers through the finished product. “Not bad! Seems to have done a decent job“, I thought. 

I tried on the freshly minted dress and looked into the mirror with dreaded anticipation. The child in me circled back and forth to ensure that my vision of what the dress should have looked like came true.  “Hmm…Looks good“, I thought. I deftly turned around and did a short swirl to capture Mr.Manga Pachadi’s reaction. The H took his eyes off the laptop screen for a nanosecond to give his customary head shake, signaling that all was well. Sigh! Men! I rolled my eyes in exasperation. It’s no secret that I had expected a more encouraging response. Mildly annoyed, I proceeded to stuff the remainder of the clothes into my wardrobe. Suddenly, I heard the jingle of anklets. Miss Mini Pachadi wandered into the room, dragging her rag doll in one hand and rubbing her sleepy eyes with the other. Bemused, she looked up and down at her mother in strange new clothes. Eyes twinkling, she exclaimed, “Amma dess…wow..“

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the validation I was looking for!! 

Aishwarya Rai and Arisi Upma

May 1998

A tiny hamlet on the banks of the river kudamurutti. A girl of 10, sporting neatly oiled pigtails is playing hopscotch in the courtyard of her grandparents’ traditional ottu veedu. Innocent kid is blissfully unaware of an event that is going to unfold over the next few days. One which will have a deep & everlasting impact on her tender heart.

As you may have guessed, the girl in question is me. And I think I would be doing my memories a great disservice if I did not document this traumatic event in my life. So here we go.

So, girl aka me was playing hopscotch when I was called inside and informed that we would be going to a movie the next day. The movie in question was one called “Genes” and to my surprise, it was a Tamil movie. It was the talk of the town because it starred Miss World 1994 Aishwarya Rai and had music by some guy called AR Rahman. Now before you judge, at the age of 10, all I watched on TV was Scooby Doo and Dexter’s Lab. Rahman who?

To give a little background, my grandparents’ place is a teeny weeny hamlet near Kumbakonam. (Actually that’s like saying Bangalore airport is near Bangalore, but you get the drift.) There was one dusty bus that would take you from the village to the city in the morning and the same bus would drop you back to the village in the evening. The other option was to order a bullock cart and you had to do this three days in advance. So, we i.e. me, Bombay cousin sister, Madras cousin brother (aka thambi), Bombay athai and Madras athai promptly woke up the next morning, gobbled our lunch by 9:30 am and scooted to the bus stop in anticipation of the bus. The bus never disappoints. Rain, thunder, floods, snow – nothing can deter the driver from making the daily trip up and down the village.

Now while getting in to this bus, I observed something weird. My Madras athai had a koodai ¹ aka. plastic basket in her hand. Now why would one carry a koodai to a movie theater? In hindsight, this should have been my first warning. So after changing two buses (village -> city, city -> theater), we finally reached the destination about 3 hours early. Let me take a minute to remind you that it is 1 pm on a sunny May afternoon when the proverbial Agni Nakshatram is at its peak. Poor me is sweating bucket loads. And then I turn around to see the poster of the movie we are about to watch – JEANS. Eh? Am I going to watch a movie about a pair of blue jeans? A little embarrassing background – 10 year old me thought that this movie is called GENES and rightly so, it had something to do with science and stuff. Though what I expected from the movie, I couldn’t tell you.

Moving on, it was soon time for the afternoon show and we found our seats in the dark and dingy theater – half torn and moth eaten. The first slide that played on the screen read “KASI A/C” . The A/C was in reference to the air conditioning facilities that this theater provided which is why we shelled out the extra Rs.30/- for the ticket. As you may guessed, the theater neither had A/C nor the humble ceiling fan. Second disappointment for the day.

Mopping my sweaty brow, I tried to immerse myself in the movie which seemed pretty okay – a beautiful Aishwarya Rai, an okay-ish plot, catchy songs. Everything seemed to be going fine. Suddenly, I heard the clink of a steel tiffin box – the sound that you can hear when you unscrew the top of the box. And Bombay cousin pushed one such box into my hands. Bewildered, I tried to make sense of its contents but given that there was pitch darkness all around, I failed. Sighing, I took a scoop of the contents and pushed it into my mouth.

Argh! There is no mistaking this one. The unappealing, the unsahikable², the undisputed king of the worst tiffin items in the whole wide world – The Upma. And to top it all, it was the queen of all upmas – The arisi upma. For the uninitiated, this is the generally accepted upma hierarchy ordered from palatable to OMG-I’d-rather-die-of-hunger-than-eat-this.

khara bath >> semiya upma >> rava upma >> arisi upma.

Basically, I would rather eat glue than arisi upma. But what can one do when one is force fed arisi upma with a side of mango pickle in the blistering Kumbakonam heat in Kasi A/C theater where the A/C is not functioning? So mustering up my will power, I proceeded to stuff the upma into my mouth silently accepting my fate. That is when I glanced at the thambi who seemed to be gobbling up his food without so much as a grumble. I proceeded to take a closer look. Hold on! That’s no upma! That’s curd rice and mango pickle!!

The cunning fellow had somehow found out in advance about the upma and had convinced my athai to pack curdrice for himself. Imagine my trauma when I saw him slurping curd rice in the 1000 degree heat while I was trying to shove little moth balls aka upma into my mouth. Ah betrayal! Piercing my heart with a poisoned spear would have been less painful. Lord Voldemort pales in comparison. I least expected my adorable younger brother, the apple of my eye, my partner in crime to “ditch” me and make me eat upma while he happily polished the cool curd rice. I decided to control my rage and asked him for an explanation.

His reply was “…but but…. I hate upma!”

Dei. Who likes it?? No one LIKES upma. Upma doesn’t like upma. One is force fed upma by mothers who cunningly dangle the “I will make poori and potato saagu tomorrow” carrot in front of our eyes.

Fast forward to 2020 and I still haven’t forgiven the thambi for this monumental betrayal. Revenge will be exacted. I will wrestle a visa out of President Trump’s hands, cross the seven seas, take thambi to the FDFS show of the next VJ na movie and shove a steel box containing arisi upma and mango pickle into his hands during the interval. And he will gobble it under my supervision.

P.S: Have you ever wondered why theatres in India forbid you from carrying your own snacks? They probably want to prevent a poor child from being force fed upma.

¹Koodai : A basket that is made from plastic wires and has two handles to carry it. Mostly used by 90’s middle school kids to carry their steel lunch boxes and water bottles. 90’s high school kids, however would steer clear of this embarrassing piece of equipment.

²Unsahikable – A Tanglish word which is used as a superlative and denotes the highest ceiling of tolerance that can ever be achieved.

Synonym: Cannot able to.

Usage: I cannot able to withstand this heat wonly

How to make a masala dosa, the agile way?

Having been a part of the software industry for quite some time now, I get stumped whenever anyone asks me this question, “What do you exactly do?”. Those readers who are in the IT industry can relate very well to my dilemma. In fact, I have spent many an evening, explaining the nature of my job and what exactly I do for a living to my parents. But after listening to the entire lecture, my dad would end the conversation with, “All that is okay but what do you do??”

So, I decided that it would be easier to find a suitable analogy to describe my job. Let’s start by assuming that the company “Diprow” is a service provider company specializing in selling Masala dosas. Ah, too simple. “Making a masala dosa is probably the easiest thing ever”, you may say. It consists of making the batter, spreading a crepe on a tava and filling it with potatoes? Well, if Diprow did make dosas, it would be different. Very different.

First of all, there would be an estimation meeting held between all the managers on how long it would take to make a dosa. This meeting could range from a few hours to a few weeks. Once a consensus is reached, the next step is to involve the software architects.This discussion would involve details such as what the size of the dosa should be and what chutneys should be served along with it. They would then break down this task into smaller work packages, namely:

1) Preparing the batter
2) Cooking the potatoes
3) Combining (1) and (2) into an edible dosa

The next step is the identification of teams who would work on each one of these tasks. So a team who had previous work experience in making idli batter, would be given task (1). Similarly (2) and (3) would then be handed over to other appropriately skilled teams. Of course, we just cannot divide the work and stop worrying about the engineers, can we? Which is why we will now have daily status meetings to track the progress of each of the teams. And of course, since Microsoft has given us this omnipotent tool called Microsoft Excel, we will utilize this to its maximum potential and make pretty pie charts and colored bar graphs.

But you see, we really don’t know if our end product will actually look and taste like a dosa. What if on the last day, we deliver a rava dosa instead of a masala dosa? Which is why we have test engineers. These gentlemen have the envious job of examining and eating the dosa and complaining about the lack of salt, spice and everything else 🙂

Apart from developers and testers, there are other classes of software engineers. You have the Usability engineer who would insist that the dosa should be a beautiful, brown color and should be served with a bright red chutney. He would also insist that the dosa should be a perfect circle with radius r and that the coriander garnish be inclined to a particular angle to give a pleasing effect to the eyes. The Quality engineer would occasionally taste the dosa and give advice on what temperature the potatoes should have been cooked at and would also insist that best way to ensure that a perfect dosa is made is to attend the daily status meetings. The Configuration engineer would setup an automated dosa maker machine which would run overnight and produce dosas in the morning for daily sampling by the testers. The user documentation expert would write a 3 page manual on what a dosa is and how it is best eaten. This would then be given free of cost to the customer. Oh yes, we also have the performance engineer. He would analyse various sample data and come up with the optimum time required to make one dosa. Sometimes, the batter could be too runny and dosa would not turn out right. There could be holes(or leaks)in the dosa. His job would be to identify these problems and fix them.

In between, be generous and throw in a good measure of monthly status meetings, weekly status meetings and even hourly status meetings if you want. And after 1.5 years, you will come up with the perfect dosa!

But you say that the darshini near your house serves a dosa in 3 mins?

Ah well.