For all the salwar kameez lovers, theres good news. For sometime now I had been looking at these hoardings at traffic signals. The hoarding with a woman wearing a very well-fitting salwar kameez. I quickly noted the address 128, commercial street. On one of my weekends I decided to make a trip there. For all those shopaholics who know every nook and corner of Commercial Street, this store is bang opposite the police station.
The store has a clean look, coz it’s quite brand new at the moment. Lots of space to accommodate a lot of people at one time. So no claustrophobia. The ground floor space is for dress materials. The first floor has 2 sections, one for the readymade salwar kameezes and the other for mix and match.
They have lots of chairs for the customers along the long counters. (A very Bombaiah ishtyle I would say). I perched my goodself on one of the chairs and asked the sales man to show me something for daily wear. The enthusiastic sales man opened some very crisp highly embroidered and glittery stuff. I thought he may have missed the “daily wear” part of what I said. So I stressed again and told him to show me something for daily wear. Again came out a battery of sets all neatly and crisply packed in transparent polythene covers. This time probably with a little less glitter, but definitely not DAILY WEAR.
I thought may be I should use a simple term. I told him to show me something which is very simple, just something which was pure cotton and fit well. The sales man scratched his head for a while and admitted he did not have anything more simple than this. I decided then to check for myself because getting into a shop and not buying any stuff was never my style. I did not want to break any record. So comfortably sitting on the chair I pointed out at some sets that I thought appeared simple from where I sat. I should admire the enthusiasm with which the salesman showed me the stuff. I am quite used to bored and depressing staff at malls and super markets. If you are lucky enough you might find one strolling from one end of the shop to the other end. He or she will generally pretend they did not hear any excuse me’s.
But then I am clever enough to shout at the top of my voice so as to embarrass and summon one immediately at my service. However not so clever because I know their standard reply - “whatever is there is on display maam, we have nothing more than this”. Great! I think to myself and feel like immediately responding back in the same polite manner and ask her if I can kill her for the stuff they do not have and that I was expecting to find. But I keep all those vicious thoughts to myself and quietly get out of the store, of course empty handed most of the times.
The sales men at Taruni were in sharp contrast. They opened each and every salwar kameez without thinking twice about how serious I was about buying them. I am sure most men presume all women to be casual shoppers, often window-shopping while kids are at school and husbands at work. I finally chose 4 sets and decided to try them. The salesman actually helped me carry all of them right till the trial room, neatly arranged them on hangers there. Surprisingly they did not force a tag onto my hand displaying the number of sets I carried inside. I liked that for a change. The changing rooms were brightly lit. The salwar kameezes needed alteration. “No problem, maam, it will be done”. He escorted me downstairs. Told me I needed to pay before I could give them for alteration. So I paid. A good buy I thought as all of them were priced below 1500. After the payment was made, the salesman carried my bags again to the alteration desk. The tailor there was quick in taking measurements. “Is it urgent” he asked me. I said I was absolutely not in a hurry. He said then he would give them to me in a day’s time. It was a good experience overall.