హర్షవనం

There is a famous proverb in Telugu which goes like this: “a bored housewife planned to visit her co-sister’s mother’s house”. I want to globalize this proverb and say that everybody in this World is deeply immersed in Online shopping to console their restless souls. This only pacifier of modern man/woman is Retail therapy. It started as a remedy to improve one’s mood and to mitigate boredom. In due course the adverse effects of Retail therapy became more harmful like long term usage of allopathic medicines causing more side effects than curing the disease

The term “Retail therapy” was first used in 1980’s in Chicago Tribune by journalist Mary Schmich to describe the habit of hitting the Stores to improve mood and outlook on life. Of late it became the favorite pastime of rich class, which later evolved into On line shopping. With rise in technology, it invaded middle class and lower-class homes also. Now we have too much of everything, yet not enough of anything.

Nowadays, if we go to any house either in America or in India entrances welcome us with brimming shoe racks. Once you enter the home, we see groaning closets and overcrowded dressing tables with umpteen cosmetics jostling like passengers struggling for foot hold in a railway general coach during festive season. Even in India I have seen mothers and sisters sitting sadly waiting for delivery of a new blouse at the overflowing cupboards to go to a Wedding. Another common scene is aunts trying to remove a line of stitches of an old blouse or uncles ironing a shirt for a party after wearing pants – hot from the oven like a bakery rush order.

We had a funny episode in Kansas when we were with our son’s family. One day we received an Amazon carton. When we opened it there was a table cloth of ironing table. Later we realized it is Oops! As my son Sandeep hastily clicked on the table cloth instead of ironing table, which was returned subsequently. That was life’s irony of ironing table cloth!

In America people at home feel at home with laptops on their laps scrolling and clicking for hours together. Laptops are truly loyal to their name sitting prettily on laps. Infants supposed to be on parent’s laps are often seen cribbing in their cribs. I have seen almost a mini–Coffee Museum in my son’s house in Kansas. Umpteen number of filters, small, big, medium, metallic and vending machines from India, Turkey and U.S. desperately peeping out from kitchen cupboards.

Scottish people say that Scotland seldom have a rain free day in a year. Similarly, our children’s homes in U.S seldom have an Amazon free delivery day. On an average half the things ordered will be either returned or exchanged. I feel perfectly at home either in Kansas or in Hyderabad with uninterrupted Amazon home deliveries. The temptation to click is irresistible as the products move at jet speed. Seeing this I always remember my childhood visit to small kirana shop to buy tamarind. The shopkeeper used to say tamarind is out of stock and informs of arrival of fresh Jaggery from Anakapalli. Our online baiters play the same old trick of unsolicited suggestions.

Saddest part of these purchases is at times after buying the stuff tags are also not removed from the garments. They will find it hard to remember when they ordered them and for what. It is similar to a man who fathered more than a cricket team plus umpires finding it a bit difficult to recognize his own offspring. Imagine the plight of our Nizams and Rajas of good old days. They might have been more tense with tens of wives and hundreds of children with fading memory.

I am the biggest beneficiary from my children in this game of On-line shopping. Because of infinite categories of fits such as relaxed-fit, slim-fit, custom-fit, comfort-fit, casual & regular-fit. Quite often the garment they get is ‘unfit’ to them. Net result is I get a bonus of ‘my-fit’ T-shirts and shirts. At times in Hyderabad also the same feat repeats with my second son Teja. Fortunately, they all fit me so perfectly as if customized for my sake.

Amazon is the most apt name for the longest deliveries they make all over the World. If you spend Thanksgiving week or Black Friday with your children in U.S, you can see the concierge counter of apartments stacked with huge cartons big, small and medium leaving narrow space to the desk in-charge. That poor lad is crammed behind the Amazon dump like a moon shrouded by thick monsoon clouds. When I saw such huge piles, I rhymed ‘Hall of Fame’ with ‘Wall of Shame’, feeling sad of depleting Amazon forests.

Amazon’s inventory is large and courteous enough to include Dand, Kamandal and alms bowls also just in case we become Sanyasi or a mendicant. Thanks to all pervasive Amazon’s farsightedness! Online sellers are offering monthly installments to buy even an article worth Rs 1000/-. You can’t escape from the Amazon’s amazing maze.

Compassionate climax

I read somewhere that in U.S every year, more number of people go bankrupt than the number of people graduate. All credit goes to mushrooming credit cards offered liberally to one and all. Under the able leadership of Manya Mahodayji now we are in no way behind the West. We have Swiggy, Zomato, Rapido, Big Basket, Amazon, Blinkit, Instamart and what not. Even before you rise your finger from the mobile the delivery boy knocks at your door like Lord Vishnu on Gajendra Moksha rescue mission.

Payment modes are oversimplified. No need to carry money. Paytm, Credit card, QR code transfer the money at blink of an eye. The sensor of QR code is so strong that even an old shaky hand shoos away your money. In the traditional shopping you feel the pinch of counting and passing on the currency.

Recently I went to temple. A beggar approached me for alms. When I was fumbling for change, he gleamed and flashed QR code before me. What a paradoxical situation? beggars on one side, QR code on the other side. I could only say “Mera Bharat Mahan” and moved on sighing deeply unable to reconcile the two extremes.

Mahatma Gandhi a great minimalist once said, “If you have four pairs of clothes in addition to the one you are wearing treat them as robbed away from the needy”. When Mahatma Gandhi visited King George V at Buckingham palace in England. He just wore a loin cloth, sandals and a shawl. A journalist asked mockingly “Mr. Gandhi, do you think you are properly dressed to meet the King?” He responded, ‘Do not worry about my clothes. His Majesty has enough clothes for both of us’. Gandhiji’s reply was literally and figuratively true as British robbed their colonies to enrich their robes copiously.

Little mindfulness can help break this mindless clicking. De-cluttering the accumulated stuff will sensitize us. Practicing gratitude and dispassionate comparison with majority lot below our standard of living assures us how Blessed we are. We should realize that making memories with loved ones bring more joy than material stuff.

As said by our elders (Athi Sarvathra Varjiyet) anything in excess is bad. Better we follow Lord Buddha’s Golden Middle Path and be content with what we have to save our health and wealth.