I am sure I will live to regret that benign act of kindness. Up until then shopping for the home had been my sole prerogative and I had exclusive rights (or so I imagined) to take decisions with regard to what was necessary or not for the household, not because it was granted to me but because nobody else had the time, which was good because anyone accompanying me would have tilted the budget towards deficit with needless buying. Now with the children having flown the nest and the husband having retired from an active banking job, encroachment into my territory had so far been resisted with great success.

But that day, when the good husband was doing nothing but boring holes in the walls and ceiling with his empty stares into nothingness, my heart melted and in a conciliatory tone I asked, “Would you like to come shopping with me?” His positive response shocked me because like all males shopping was anathema to him. Perhaps it was the sheer boredom after retirement that made him acquiesce. So we got ready and armed with the customary bags (otherwise you have to pay three rupees for each bag , counselled the Wise One)we took the lift downstairs hailed an auto and got in.  “Big  Bazar vellali” (We need to go to the General Bazar) said my husband after we sat down. “ Mujhe Telugu nahi ati”, (I don’t know Telugu) said the driver in Hindi. The Wise One jumped out of the auto as if his tail was on fire. This was an opportunity he could not let go to deliver his message to the nation in general and to the driver in particular. He seized the occasion to express his jingoistic love for the state language which happened to be his mother tongue. How can you not know the state language after living in Hyderabad for so long (assumption) ? You people have no respect for the language. If you go to Chennai you have to speak Tamil and if you go to Bengal nobody will respond unless you speak in Bengali. So why not Telugu here?  The fact that I was still sitting in the auto stoked the embers of rage again resulting in the curt order to me “Get down”. When he is in that mood, I have learnt it is best not to argue.  As for the auto driver, though this was not road rage in the strictest sense of the word, it was rage nevertheless and he did not want to risk being embroiled in it any further. But he had to admit he was totally clueless about its origin.

 So we waited for another auto which came cruising down after a couple of minutes which I utilized to pray that this driver would be multi lingual. Ha! The Gods had heard my long distance appeal and so we landed at Big Bazar without further ado.

Before I could check my list the Wise One stepped into the segment that displayed “Buy two get one” offers on assorted goods such as soaps and shaving blades.  Look, he said, It really is a super offer we can’t afford to miss. Shall we take it? he asked, only as a democratic effort at discussion and consultation which I knew meant we are taking it. I told him that the offer had been there for the last two months. ‘Precisely’, he said, like Sherlock Holmes saying “Elementary my dear Watson” ‘that is exactly why we should take it. The offer is sure to be withdrawn next month’. Apparently Susan Newman and Maritza Manresa had not succeeded in teaching me how to say No. So we put into the cart two dozen soaps  and three sets of shaving blades.

I took out my list again but wait, where was the Wise One? He had sauntered into another area that displayed plastics of every shape and colour. Very attractive no doubt to look at, but....... ‘We needed new buckets for the bathroom did we not? Lets take four of the largest ones. They will come in handy to store water in summer when there is an acute shortage. I leave the choice of the colour to you’, he added generously as he selected some plastic serving bowls that came in a variety of shapes. ‘When guests come for tea’,  he said and placed a dozen in the cart. He has this habit of ‘evening’ things out by selecting six of one colour and six of another. It was a situation I could not wriggle out of, without creating a public scene.

I  glanced  surruptitiously at my list again, wondering when we could actually begin doing what we came out to do. ‘Shopping is so tiring isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I wonder how you women endure it for such long hours. I would love to take you for a cup of coffee but how can we lug these things around? So let’s go home, shall we and then we can relax with a cuppa’ .

We returned home, armed with an array of goods that might come in useful to our grandchildren, if at all these things are in vogue then, and provided I found a place to store them in our increasingly short- of- human- space house.

 Now I am Minister without portfolio but I spend my time telling the good man how wise he is and how deprived the Banking sector would be if he did not set up a consultancy of his own.