The other day, I felt like having burgers for dinner. I gathered my car keys, rushed down eight flight of stairs, and made my way to Big Bazaar at the East Delhi Mall (located no more than 5-6 kilometres from where I reside).
Big Bazaar for burgers, you might ask? Ah, the plot thickens. When yours truly is commanded by hunger to produce burger, the instruction is meant to be taken quite literally. Nirula’s, McDonald’s, and so on be damned; it will have none of them; it is only yours truly, he of redoubtable culinary fame, whose labour can fashion a burger worthy of hunger craving tummy.
But then, why the visit to Big Bazaar? Actually, Big Bazaar has surreptitiously entered our quotidian ’things-to-do’ list; I suppose the next time our (as yet non-existent) pet runs out of the house, I’ll promptly be dispatched to Big Bazaar to look for it! On that particular day, I rushed off to Big Bazaar (let’s call the damned place BB; after all, even as I write this piece, the name keeps popping up every two lines) with the expressed purpose of buying Chinese cabbage and some lettuce to serve as greens for the burger; I always keep a ready stock of burger patties.
I drove down to BB, parked, rushed down to the basement level wherein is located more foodstuff than what my ancestors might have seen in their entire lifetime. On the day however, there was no Chinese cabbage in stock, nor any lettuce. Disappointed, I thought I’d walk around a bit before leaving. When I did leave an hour later, the billing clerk swiped my card to punch in payments to the tune of Rs 2, 300! I had walked in for a bunch of humble greens; I eventually walked out carrying four heavily laden bags filled with all manner of things.
My list of purchases included a host of articles in pairs (you know, ’’buy one, get one free’’ types); five office-wear shirts, of which two were completely free; one kilo of sugar (free again; since I had produced an ICICI-BB co-branded card, the sugar was gratis; two huge five kilo bags of rice (yeah, you guessed it; buy five kilos, be burdened with 10); sundry tetra-packs of juices, procured apropos extremely complicated offers (buy one, 10 rupees off; buy two, 45 per cent off; buy three, get two free and so on and so forth).
Anyway, with over 25 kilos of laden weight, I could barely waddle across the atrium to reach the car park. Boy, was I happy to finally kill the engine once finally back home. Of course there was the matter of climbing four storeys, but at least I was home.
It was at that moment when all I had to do was ring the bell that I realised I was not an inch closer to producing the burger demanded an hour-and-a-half earlier. What unfolded next is best kept secret. Albeit everything that happened that evening, I have a dirty funny feeling that I will soon return to BB.