Saturday, August 18, 2012

The 'Just Married, Please Excuse' Contest

A good friend of mine has written  a really great book. To promote the book, there is a contest going on which has really great prizes (FREE FOOD FREE FOOD :-)) .  I shall be unabashedly upfront and say that the free dinner is one thing that has prompted me to write this entry.  I have always said free food is normally my only driver :-)

For the uninitiated , you can read about the contest here . Nonetheless here is my go at a chance for the free food (oh notice a recurring theme here)



A man getting ready for marriage receives free "gyan" from various sources. Unfortunately most of these sources concentrate on the spiritual aspect and do not keep either party informed of more practical challenges around marriage. We were in our 2nd month of marriage when my wife thought it was time to go shopping. I don't know if women have an idea of how men shop but for the uninitiated let me give a brief synopsis of our well known  scientific methods

We go to x y z Shop
We look for a shirt in our size.
We buy the shirt which looks nice while we hold it completely folded and packed
We pay the money
We leave the shop

Typically the shirt would either be blue or white in colour. On a particularly adventurous day , we may even chose a light cream colour but that is the extent of our tryst with coloured shirts. The entire activity including going to the shop and getting back would be completed within half an hour. In the event the shirt we buy does not fit , we relegate it to one of the shelves of our cupboards and don't refer to it again



 I don't know if you have been to a Delhi mall on a weekend but if you have not been I have two words for you "Lucky you". It just seems as if the world , their second cousin and the second cousins aunt have descended on to the mall. My suggestion to E that we go to the mall at 11 AM was met with complete and utter disdain. The look that i got seemed to indicate who goes to a mall in the morning when it is empty. The correct answer to that would have been "uhmmm... men" . However there is a time and a place for every answer and it was clear to me that that was certainly neither the place nor the time for that answer.

The first impression i got that things would not be as per plan was when E responded to my comment about which shop with a haphazard lets see.  We walked into a westside and E started looking for stuff. There is something remarkably embarrassing about a guy walking in the women's section specially when he is not accompanied by his wife. Unfortunately this was one of those large department stores which have the entire floor devoted to women's clothing and thus there was no escape. The other thing that i learned was that men get embarrassed a lot easier than women. I was standing outside the waiting room where it was written very clearly only two garments per person. However that did not stop E from carrying 6 in her hand . When she was stopped by the lady at the waiting room. To manage this situation , she dumped 4 garments in my hand and asked me to wait near the dressing room. As I stood nervously shuffling my feet outside the trial room , I am sure most of the women passing by me were thinking pervert.

As E came out the first question was "How does it look" . Once again for the women reading this post , let me explain the psychology of the man. For us the word nice covers the entire gamut of emotions we men use to convey something we like . This is not a half hearted response . This is also not the inability to take a stance. My rant here pretty much covers how E reacted to my nice. The next time she came out , I decided to appear a lot more enthusiastic and said "Wow , Amazing". This was of course met with a "uhmm , i don't like it" .. Arre Bhai if u do not like it , then why did you wear it and come out. Kindly understand our small man brain is unable to process multiple threads of information in one go.

Roughly 3 and a half hours later E left the store with 1 cushion cover and 1 photo frame. Going forward E and I have decided that shopping shall be done individually. She normally goes with her sis while I uhmmm .. Oh yeah i don't shop a lot. The activity of buying the shirt has been delegated to her. As an Aside my wardrobe definitely has some more colour.

2 comments:

Sia said...

Nice read..
But you know what - you must get somem tips on how to impress your wife on a shopping spree.Will help you in the long run ;)
Good luck with the contest!

Manav said...

@Sia thanks. Btw i think the wife has given up on me when it comes to shopping :-)