When it rains i revisit old books.
Some weekends when it’s stormy and afternoon is turning to evening, I lie on the futon and read all all my favourites.
Mandrake. Bahadur. Alexander Frater’s Chasing the monsoon. The Mahabharat. Bill Bryson’s Notes from a small country. Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley Series. Biggles. Pearls before Swine. Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus. And of course liberal doses of Feluda.
Everyone has comfort food. I have comfort books.
Do you have parent prices?
I do.
So I walk into a store at phoenix. And see this super t shirt. Thin cotton, summer print, nice wide neck, and hallelujah, it gives an illusion of boobs (yeaaah!).
And it costs thousand bucks.
So I buy it, and then have a mild heart attack. Because my mom is waiting outside. No way can she know this plain cotton T-shirt costs thousand bucks. And no, I don’t think the fact that it's cleverly designed to give me nice tata's (term learnt from watching Beverly Hills 90210, where they spent most of their time tanning their tata's) is going to have her holding my hand and jumping with joy.
So I race out of the shop, and nervously clap my hands in glee and tell her everything inside was at a fifty per cent discount.
My mom’s eyes light up, and she says, “let’s go back in then, let me buy you some more stuff.”
I have another quick heart attack, before I mumble something about feeling faint with hunger. That always works with my mom. Immediately we turn around, and my mom spends the next hour trying to feed my face off.
But the point is I have to keep doing this. Those awesome wedges, only five hundred bucks. That fancy underwear, ha ha, don’t tell me you didn’t hear of their massive clearance sale. I cleaned them out, bought everything for four hundred bucks. And those mango pants, just six hundred bucks.
This time I had decided, “what the fuck, I’m a grown woman, why do I need to do this, I’m going to tell my mom what things really cost.”
And then I did it again.
It’s not like she’s going to freak out, it’s just that it will terribly upset her middle class values. If it costs more than thousand bucks, it should not be cotton, ideally must have ruffles, and cannot ever be a t shirt. A salwaar kameez for thousand bucks is worth it, but a t shirt never.
And underwear, let’s just say if she ever found out what it cost, she would probably drag me to la senza and demand that they refund my money, there and then.
Yeah. I think I’m a lot safer being a super bargain hunter in her eyes.
