Sunday, 25th January, 2009. Big Bazaar, the retail store chain. Particular instance of the store at Hebbal in Bangalore. Have no reason to visit. Attracted significantly enough to decide to visit by 16-page booklet announcing great shopping festival and ‘exciting offers’ that came with the Times of India a day earlier . With my wife. On our two-wheeler. 5-km ride, first on Bellary Road and then on Tumkur Road.
Pass the giant store from the opposite side of the road. Notice, with shock and awe, tremendous activity around the store. Long, long line of two-wheelers parked on tiny side road. Expectedly, have trouble finding a parking slot. Park, far away from the store itself. Forced to un-park by a guard who says this parking slot is for those visiting a bar in a shopping complex. Now park in front of a darshini, the typical south Indian fast food veg restaurant. Nobody objects. Probably safe, but lingering worry on state of two-wheeler when I return.
Approach the store. Notice that entrance is not directly through the sliding doors, but through a maze designed to hold a long, long queue of peoople. Bemused. Wondering if we have come to Tirumala or Sabarimala. People actually slipping under barricades to get in ahead of others. Curiouser and curiouser.
We enter the store on Level 1. Sales promotions galore. Not all of them bargains. Nearly all promotions offering some goods free on purchase of some others. Almost no outright discounts. Maximum glut, we feel, is in the clothes section. Buy 2 get 2 free. Buy 5 get 7 free. Wondering, how many people want to overhaul their wardrobe by buying 12 clothes at once? Thinking, we don’t even have that much space at home.
People swarming all over the place. Imagining what an ant must feel like on an anthill. All ‘ants’ have shopping carts or tug-along bags stuffed with stuff. Shopping carts frequently have a child or two seated in them, as if children are also offered on a discount on Level 5 of the store. No aisle or passageway is empty. At any given moment, every passageway has at least one frantic shopper checking out bargains. The American dream.
Typical scenes of people buying completely unncessary stuff. Lot of people carrying two foam pillows each, offered for the price of one. Seems lot of people suddenly want to be very, very comfortable at home with extra pillows. A couple has bought 10 buckets. Probably to distribute in their locality.
Consumer behaviour is contagious. I go in search of an empty shopping cart. Find one near the exit. We select an airtight container and a ladies’ purse. Our real need is to buy groceries. So we reach Level 4, the Food Bazaar. Maximum crowd. Serpentine queues for billing, except that no serpent in the world grows to this length. Dumbfounded by this consumer onslaught. The consumerist Singh is king, or so it appears.
Finally decide to beat a hasty retreat. As hasty as the crowds allow. Drop our shopping cart unobtrusively in a corner. Make our way through jostling crowds near the billing counters on Level 1. Successfully pass through and exit. Security guard at exit looking for bills and articles to check, surprised at not finding any. Walk to two-wheeler, which is safe, thank God. Drive away to home and hearth.
Had certain thoughts while inside this insane shopping asylum. How do you define economic slowdown? How big has the great Indian middle class become? Will the retailers profit, even after offering nearly every good at a discount? When will the countless items in the inventory of that giant store finally all move out? Will it ever happen, even after so many people have bought so many of those items, most of which they didn’t need in the first place? What comes over us when we enter a crowded supermarket with stocked shelves and see others with full shopping bags? Competitive spirit? Animal instinct? Supermarkets resemble casinos. You come out with empty pockets when you had not expected to leak money.
