It’s an effort to pass it off as a mall
in this town of Haryana, even though it is no more than a street urchin is not
a self-sustaining, mature confident young man. Delhi isn’t too far, and almost
everybody, to whom the issues like malls matter, especially the teenagers and
young adults, has been, one time or the other, to the famed Ambience and Sahara
in Gurgaon and scores of others in Delhi. But you just cannot scamper away to
those famous places every time your eyes burn with desire to watch the latest
release; your tongue lets loose a stream of saliva to dab into something
chatpata, some pizza burger sandwich chicken fry; your wallet appears too heavy
and eager to shed some bucks to get some famous brand, some trousers, bra,
lingerie, underwear, undergarments, jeans, shirts, tops, trackpants, sneakers,
and more. We get as much itchy to spend as we are eager to earn. That’s where
the consumer culture draws its lifeblood from. And these days you don’t want to
hunt around in a dusty sweaty market to get your cravings fulfilled. There are
too many shops and too many provisions. You need too little items and of many
types. You want it at one place. So even a small town, with its inhabitants
having seen the luxury a mall offers, has to have a mall.
And here it comes up like the first
tottering steps of a toddler.
The three-storeyed mall has come up to
at least partially fulfill the shoppers’ and idlers’ dreams. It’s an adolescent
town running to meet its mature city self down the decade. One side on the
ground floor has garments, footwear and a couple of saloons. The other side has
struggled. Subway struggled there, so did pizza wallas, and so did the
franchisee-less efforts at cuisine by enterprising dish-makers. The peda and lassi wallah left. They left with more enthusiasm than they opened.
A Patanjali store, sure of its brand, on the upswing, has taken the space of
three stores, by removing the walls in between. It has more display cases and
rows than the number of people at a time. Still we survive for future. The
brand gives all indication of growing, growing and still growing. Let’s see how
long it goes.
On the second floor, one side is ready
to take shoppers in. But it is all shuttered up, no takers so far. The other
side is yet to have its separate blocks of shops. Even the floor tiles are
missing. You just have the all-clear view across the class front along the
outer side. We missed the basement part. It has a huge, stuffed to the gills,
provision store. The rest is parking lot where hardly anyone parks, apart from
those who have set up business here. Teenagers just try to get suddenly
invisible, now standing here, now gone, and steal some kisses behind the
pillars in the basement. A boy and a girl kissing, though still a considerable
scandal, is no longer the sin it used to be a decade back when it fetched honor
killings as consequences. Now it fetches leering, jealous remarks and sniping
hooting. That much is digestible for a godamm kiss. Of course there are many,
who don’t have a girl in their lives, even in this freeway decade, when many
successful macho boys claim girls are better available than even brandless
shirts in rundown stores, who prowl around to catch it preferably on camera,
and leave it in the endless stream of the social media.
Domino’s arrived with a bang, “Try all
new Dominos”. The had the push of their brand. Unfortunately not many takers.
It closed. Displays are still there, waiting for a new player to relieve them
of their wasted duty. On the glass-fronted marketplace side of the mall, Looks Unisex Saloon is displayed in
white letters on a tar black board. Its plush interiors and golden
embellishments invite with a modern smirk. To surpass the rickety level of
modernity, both males and females are welcome. Well, that makes it modern by
default. It’s a humungous effort to catch up with modernity. The rate of change
has lagged a bit in the society lynched by patriarchy. By the salon’s side, New York Slice are gone. Unique
Collection, the garmenters, look over the counters to spot some serious buyers.
The staff at Giani’s since 1956 broom the not so stamped floor, trying to make
it swank clean. They are trying to look damn busy, thinking their up to the
marl seriousness will draw people. By its side Satyam Medical Store sells
condoms, I-pills, toffees, chocolates, napkins, but hardly any takers for
medicines. They must selling some headache pills and ENO to survive.
In the lobby flex-board covered cubicle
welcomes you. It’s Batra Lemon Corner, a red cubicle with price lists of nimbu
lemon, jeera lemon, milk rose, pista rose and many more displayed all along the
upper half of the set-up. The lower half of the cubicle still carries the signs
of its past. The previous entrepreneur, Sip and Bite, tried to seduce young
boys and girls with patties, aloo patties, macrony patties, chilly patties and
still more. The past that never was, it hardly began, and ended. It but still
survives to remind some bored eyes that there are patties in this world. On the
ground floor some shutters are closed, but they have displays. These are shops
in making. Auram, by Nisha. No clue what it may mean or stand for. Time will
tell. It may remain anonymous, the entrepreneur may decide to call it quits at
this stage only. A nail art saloon, D’nails, get any design on your nail. It
seems progressive. Till a decade back those who look at the board didn’t even realize
the importance of decking up face, forget about nails which got broken while dealing with buffaloes
and bulls in the fields. Dollar, always on top, upcoming. These are rich red
letters bordered with white on a pitch black board. An aggressive style
statement for the undergarment brand. They have been around for some time, so
may storm through the initial apathy of window-shoppers.
Like a dead, open-mouthed whale the
green Subway cubicle has been closed with more enthusiasm than it was started
with. Or is it open forever? Sub in
white and Way in yellow, in a white
elliptical background. Metal chairs and plastic tables are neatly stacked
inside. At least there is grace in closing down. The owner seems to be a
diligent person. There is also a plastic room cooler and glassless display
case. It was a world which saw its end coming even before it was born. Nearby, Amazing Kids is yet to come with its
collection of kids wear. The starter must be keeping a close watch over the
kids loitering around holding the fingers of their parents. United Colors of
Benetton, the spacious interior has enough kindness for privacy of flirtation
among the sales staff. Shopping wise there isn’t much of botheration. Priya
Retail Store, shop and save. The invitation is very sympathetic. But is there
any saving after shopping. Ever? Anywhere? It’s about spending. Baker’s Hut has nice, suave, white,
brown, grey tiles. Who cares. The attendant is yawning like he has just woken
up, even though it’s almost lunch time. City
Heart Restaurant has claustrophobic interiors. An LED blares as if in the musty
back eats of a disc. Teenagers just sit around to watch some song, drink water,
do their stuff under the tables and go out. In the garments store, even the
notice of 50% discount offer repels more people than it attracts.
Very few people take the lift, after
all it’s a matter of just two flights of stairs. But its door has
advertisements strips arranged very nicely. These are city brandmakers: Family
Dentist, Verma Pathology, Rawal Retina Centre, Bansal Health Square, City
Computer Point. Small people with big dreams. Well, isn’t world made of such
people only. Those who are no longer small hardly live.
The third floor is the most lively one.
They have two screens of Max Cinema on the one side. Opposite is a long and
spacious gym, running along the full length of the mall. You can see fat middle
aged women, their children gone to schools, and husbands packed off to
workplaces, sweating out on the treadmill to chuck out tummy and bum fat right
there at noontime. It’s also about getting some Godsent opportunity of some
fling to bear up the sinisterly boring tide of the creepy mid-life crisis and
boredom.
Max Cinema entry is a bit livelier.
They do some business at least. Not that they play nice movies all the time,
but basically because they provide privacy and darkness. Icing on the cake. Couples
with thudding hearts sneak in to get corner seats to hold hand and do a bit
more as would not make them repent the cost of INR 300 for two seats. Two
teenagers are stopped by the guard who asks them to take the Centrefresh out.
“You put it on the seats,” he is in a position to chide. Those who don’t have a
girl actually do this, possibly as revenge and a sort of rebellion by their
teenaged self.
National anthem before gets played
before the movie starts. Nobody wants to court controversy, so all stand up
willingly, unwillingly. They get down even before the great anthem finished.
Nobody wants to lose even a precious second in the cool darkness.
In the national flag, saffron and green
are separated by white. How symbolic. There has to be peace between them. But
who will play white?
It’s the cinema that makes the story
for this mall in its infancy. The heaviest footfall was when Dangal was
screened. It was never livelier. What a crowed! The owners may have the first
night of best sleep during Dangal screening.
Cinema is pushing the revolution of
bringing boys and girls together. The surrounding area is deeply conservative.
Teenagers and adolescents don’t look forward to hit films. They like those lean
weeks when there is no hit spoiling their hideout by the surging crowds. They
prefer flops, when hardly anyone comes for the show. The big, dark, cool
hideout is the perfect bargain for 150 rupees. A lot of intimacies unfold, with
just a few dozen couples busy with their expression of love and lust in far
corners, in the middle of the rows, and anywhere a contriving self of a flushed
adolescent deems it fit.
You may have the best of a girl with
the worst of a guy, the best of a boy with a horribly thin girl, both good
looking, both average, both funny. As many combos you can ever think of. It’s
an eclectic mix. It’s not about choice. The floodgates have recently been
opened, so you cannot be choosy. It’s only about having a boy or a girl friend.
On principle. Choices, what, when, how, where and why come later.
Girls come with their faces covered
with headcloth. Hooded for secrecy. The strains of patriarchy are still
surviving. Honor killings are still not totally unheard off. It’s better to be
cautious. The headcloth, which kept women in almost slavery for centuries, is
now an instrument of freedom, of anonymity, of facelessness. With it you just
become a girl, you lose your name. You cover your face and you lose your identity
to become just a girl. So scornful eyes of the elders will just curse a girl
generally, instead of you particularly. They wear jeans, suit and salwaars,
awkward imitation of the world in the movies and the Delhi NCR. Some look
terribly funny though. But it’s more important to assert your independence. It
can come at the cost of sounding funny. A dignified slavery is worse. A funny independence
is better. Somehow. Don’t have the logic for this. Just that it feels so.
They
loiter around, almost on tiptoes, keeping a strict watch from their hooded faces
and eyes, lest they be recognized by some acquaintance. If they haven’t
actually seen it, at least all of them have heard of honour killings that were
rampant, as little back as 5 years ago, in each and every settlement in
Haryana. So it’s about flying with the wings of age, of curiosity, of sex,
intimacy, kissing and holding hands. The mall thus grows in operation, month after
month more people come, making it less scandalous for the young ones. Let’s
hope the theft becomes a routine affair of life, to draw it out from the
illegal shadows of minds to turn it just a mere simple fact of life, to stop
rape, to vanquish molestation.