Shopping...

Some people just love it and usually this word is mostly associated with the women folk. Why is that so? Because it’s the women folk that make the world such a beautiful place and all the adjectives that glorify beauty is concomitant with the nimble and tender species of this world. It’s a make believe thing. And the humans have created so many things that can add zing to the gorgeous species that can become alluring, charming, elegant, comely, ravishing yet sublime. Many may not like the way I have portrayed women, as it tends to objectify them as a product and not for what they are. But that’s the honest reality whether one may like it or not. We like to see, what we want to see and not the reality. That’s why we are so fascinated and enamored by what’s happening behind lights, camera and action. They make everything so very spell bounding by artificially creating a modish atmosphere that is far removed from the reality. And we are so much drawn into this convoluted quagmire, we are made to believe that life has to be lived this way. Only if you present yourself in such an admirable manner, impeccably and meticulously, would you be considered chic and voguish.

And there are thousands of things to recreate you into a different you. From the hairstyles, eyebrows, eyelashes, lipsticks, earrings, nose rings, facial makeups, manicure, pedicure, inner and outer wear, sandals, shoes etc., etc., it seems as if it’s endless. There are so many different fashion houses, labels from the ultra-expensive, to the moderate and cheap to cater to every purse and aspiration to become dazzling and angelic in the eyes of others. In this way the strata of the society is differentiated between the haves who can afford something, to others who can buy anything. So if you possess a designer dress, shoe or a bag that’s worth much more that what others have, you are deemed to be in a different class. Here the game changer is “money” that can buy you what you want and what you aspire for.

To put it more lucidly, it can extend beyond draping oneself in designer outfits with accessories. It would encompass the kind of car that you drive or be driven around by a Chauffeur, the house or mansion that you live in, the kind of house hold stuff that you possess and the list is endless. In short, the shopping binge seeks attention from everyone. It’s just that the ultra-rich might enjoy shopping whenever they like, the other classes would prefer to do it whenever there is this magic word “sale”. It’s these discounts on products that attract the mass class of buyers.

Why do we buy. It’s for the sake of fashion, to keep oneself abreast of the latest fad in town. Sometimes, a necessity and at times for the sake of convenience and normal living. Well, here I refer to the shopping of all things that are not meant for consumption on a day to day basis like the groceries, foodstuffs etc., Is it really the necessity that drives us to shop, in some cases yes. But in most cases, it’s that innate desire to keep oneself abreast of what’s in rage that drives us to buy. It helps to satiate the inner ego that you can afford to buy this or that product which is in trend. Beauty is no more defined by what one perceives of the other person. It’s the immaculate presentation that matters and the adulations one receives from others that drives us to do what we do. And we want our womenfolk to be prettiness personified adorned by the choicest of all creations that humans have invented to embellish the exterior in such charismatic and bewitching demeanor.

My spouse and myself are no different from many others that scoot to the shopping centers whenever there is an advert for sale. We would like to grab the best of whatever that’s on Sale so that we can look nonpareil, whenever we need to go out and present ourselves in front of the world. We want to world to perceive our superficial exterior, the periphery of what we want to manifest, rather than what we truly are in our innermost soul. Because, we feign ourselves by saying that’s what the world wants to see, an ornate pageantry, that’s ostensible and has no substance underneath. But that’s the reality isn’t it. No one would take you seriously, if you were to be disheveled and unkempt. For that matter, you would be treated as a castaway, if you are a bedraggled person. Nobody would want to be ostracized from the society for personifying what one truly is and so we bedeck ourselves to represent a persona what the world wants to see and not what we are.

Well, you might wonder, I have completely moved away from the subject matter of “shopping” into something else. It was just a connation to write about what the subject entails and how we actually delineate a different persona that what we are. And referring to the womenfolk was just an allegory as it could be related more easily than with the men. However, it applies to all. Apologies, if the women found it to be demeaning. As I said earlier, I just used a particular set of people as an apologue, that was about it and nothing intentional.

#Thoughts