Yes! Mysore has a new shopping mall and people are sure excited about it. If anyone is not, it has to be the salesmen.
Easy Day, near BMH hospital, is complete with everything from groceries to clothes and accessories, kitchen ware to vegetables, fruits and even liquor, everything at discounts. Every product came with a special offer, even Lays cost 10ps less. I went on a weekday first and was thrilled by it. So I decided to take my friends there for the weekend, unknowing that I would see the whole of Mysore crowded into the ground floor of easy day mall on Sunday evening. Why would it not be? Great clothes at prices starting at Rs.99, it is a loot. Children and adults alike were pushing through the crowd steering huge trolleys and carrying baskets full to the brim, some with goods and some with passengers (kids). Some of us could not even find baskets to carry the stuff, we picked up buckets instead.
A dozen billing counters at the exit counter were swarming with people and their lengthy bills. People pushed around looking for a line at the billing counter that is less crowded and stood at the far ends tapping their feet in impatience, while at the other end a nervous salesman sweated trying to decode the bars on the products and finding small change for big notes. Some others with the big trolleys simply decided they had no patience to stand in the queue for 15 minutes, and threw away hours of shopping time saying “let’s go to More, it is the same stuff here, nothing special”. Sentences like this were punctuated by sudden cut down of lights or A/c, making the impatient shoppers sun out for fresh air and never come back. We might have an easy day here but it is always tough for the salesmen. One of them billing at the fruits section packed a kilo of pears for us and asked innocently “how do these taste madam?”
We did not buy much, so the billing process was quickly over and we walked out, silently wishing a good night’s sleep for all the salesmen so they can wake up tomorrow and be ready for one more day’s marathon run at Easy Day.