To buy or not to buy: A shopper's story

Pic: Dreamtime

What I find is that for some years I have been buying things from the supermarket and enjoying the lack of a human element so much that I cannot tolerate when a very efficient looking (read polite, well made-up and dressed in stylish uniforms) comes and tries to interfere with the process of choosing a product. 

These shops do have cameras and motion sensors and I have often wondered "Do I look suspicious?" but the plain fact is that I have to check prices at closer levels than it is normal because of my eyesight as there are instances when I have quite overlooked digits before and after. 

After roaming around for hours, it is only natural that one knows many of these aisles by heart but at times, they do shift things around and I like to keep things in my mind and their availability for future purposes as well. 

But recently, I feel that I have been coaxed into buying things that I don't want to buy any day. Even a look in a particular aisle might end up in products that might be of no use. I was forced to buy two shades of blue nail polish instead of my usual shade of pink plainly out of courtesy. It's almost like they look into your eyes and shake your decisions. At times, I refuse very politely but I am rather piqued looking at my fingernails. 

When I shared this experience, I got a similar story, one from a friend and one from my mother. Many of these girls are overtly made up and say dialogues like "This toner is so good for your skin" and I always wonder have they really used it themselves!

But then I think I decided to play a different game because out of habit, I know their products by heart and can ask for a brand or a product they may not have! And, I think does work in most cases and sometimes I just name something that I really need and run as fast as possible as soon as I find it. 

But I guess it sure has spoiled the pleasure of shopping of finding where things are kept and then buying them. I do remember that during the early days of marriage, my husband would hold my hand tight so that I might not go missing in one of these aisles. 

Bottom line: I think my gripe against them is that they keep recommending cosmetics that I really don't want or may be because of some very lovely remedies for acne such as Himalaya Facewash or Age Miracle and so on. Part of this might be because of a very absent-minded childish naive expression on my face and I am working on a cure for this.

A smile

In your mind

Acorn and the oak tree

Purple Riot: debut book

  

You can buy the book from amazon !

Knowledge

Choices

Butterfly

Spring

Celtic prayer

Nature

I wish you enough

Happiness

A book

You wanted a book dedicated to you, my dear. I could write many a story of you and me, words and silence, music and love, rain and summer.

You are a sacred space that I have never left; a home that keeps me grounded to the world of dreams, though some are lost and some found again. For I’m like the proverbial woman who lost a valuable coin and has found it again after thorough searching.

You have a bowl full of colours that fetch you happiness every day; while I keep mine clean and empty for an impulsive act of alms from you. Someday, you might give me a little from the lot you have, just to keep me from starving.

The clouds still heave and burst into tears, every now and then. Years have gone by; still you are special, by the way you brought back music to me; for I’d never forget that one day, when you made me understand that I had forgotten how to sing.

Every day, from dawn to dusk, your name is like a talisman that I keep safe from the world, till words form one by one and fill these blank pages.

Campus

It’s raining heavily this evening

But there alights a golden glow;

On the tall trees of the campus,

The fox’s wedding of the lore.

A sight enough to lift the chill,

We stand in the corridor amazed;

While a horde of boys cackle

To show who’s boss around here.

The rain looks drawn like lines,

Straight by a measured hand;

When the glow disappears sudden

We get back to work and chatter.

A cold long rainy evening it was

Made warm with our smiles.

Good Fortune

Good fortune

There was no good luck on my cards today

Not that I care much for being what I am

But my fortune was not so good enough

Without a smile to lighten my weary day.

Not that I am what you want me to be

Not that I do what you really want me to

I have always ran away yet lost miserably

For I am like a lion in a cage of the past.

A lion that the people watch and observe

Throwing bits and pieces on my tiring day

Fighting over my ownership and knowledge

With records of all my mistakes, past. 

Yet when I look at where you always sit

A stupid grin spreads across my sad face. 

Erkenci Kus

Recently, I  started watching Erkenci Kus, a Turkish serial that is about love between an extraordinary couple named Jan and Sanem. The word means an early bird or a daydreamer. In the first encounter between Sanem and Jan, Jan kisses Sanem in the dark mistaking her for his girl friend Polen. 

Sanem is a naive young girl who is in the limelight the whole time for the right and wrong reasons while Jan is a sensitive young man who happens to own a company. 

It has been a long time since I watched anything that restores my faith in romantic love and its adventures. The serial has around 56 episodes and English subtitles are available for most of them. 

You and I

You are an innocent who wears his heart on his sleeve in a world full of lies. You read a signal wrong and caused this accident of love to bloom in your heart. I am the one who knows and bears the hurts from those seething with anger, the ones who really love you and care for you. I was like a sleepwalker till you made me see what you wanted me to see. 

Your pain makes me cringe and makes me feel miserable about my carelessness.Though I broke your heart and watched you crumble, I know that it's for your own good. Yet the worlds that we inhabit will be broken down if ever our words meet. Sometimes, I wish that you will open your eyes and see me for what I really am, not what you think me for: no goddess but just an ordinary woman.

For us

Not wrapped in glitzy sheets
Nor given with graceful words
A gift casually made out of 
A used personal belonging

The thought behind the gift
Were purple hearts drawn
And scrawled on pages that
Looked like reminders

You could have pinned it 
And showed it with pride
Than make purple hearts
And make others laugh

The deep red of a riot
Soul colour of a shade.

Evenings with coffee

I would say, you were a stranger, who somehow knocked against me accidentally somewhere along the road on a rainy day. After the initial shock had worn out, we looked at each other with wonder.

You sat beside me for a friendly chat sipping hot coffee in an evening air that smelt of freshly brewed coffee and newly baked bread.

You and me spoke of things that were trivial, irrelevant to every one else in our lives. That evening was followed by many, which smelt of coffee and bread. The smells became familiar but not repellent.

Strangely the word “coffee” brings your face to the mind. After so long, when I sit with a cup of coffee and a book watching the rains, I don’t know what I look at or look for outside the window.

This rain somehow brings up memories I cannot erase. The so-called days together were not very remarkable but stay afloat just like the smell of freshly brewed coffee and newly baked bread. So much that I don’t know whether I am sad or plain hungry!