(Indian) Man on a mission…

This past weekend my wife dragged me to our monthly Indian grocery ‘pilgrimage’. I am sure my fellow Non-resident Indian compatriots understand the emotional ordeal. It had been a while since I last visited the Indian them park on Newark ave. in Jersey City.

Indian male doing grocery shopping in an Indian store is nothing short of a NASA scientist looking for life in space. Man on a mission. They are so focused in what they do that they won’t even realize that there are other fellow co-shoppers and keep on bumping into others, literally. You enter the chaotic store and you notice most of the male shoppers has a ‘To-Do’ list, mostly prepared by the Chief Operating Officer (Dharam-Patni) of there household. The most priced possession in the bazaar is the empty shopping cart. Just as in India we have a cast system of our own in the Indian grocery stores. The great class divide is based on the ownership of the shopping carts. The ‘haves’ and the ‘have-not’s’!! Either you have it or you don’t, it’s as simple as that. Taking a note of the grave socio-cultural-economic situation, the store owners have tried to create a ‘middle class’ of sorts by brining in the ‘basket’. Once in the store and with cart or basket on hand the minds get into action. There eyes always wondering, looking for that ‘one item’. The cardinal sin of Indian grocery shopping is buying a ‘replacement’ for an item on the list.

One of the happiest moments of this mission is the time when all the items are crossed off. The narrow check-out lines serves dual purpose of your health check as well. For if you find it difficult to pass through the line, you know you need to hit the gym sooner rather then later. Once you are out of that bazaar you feel that you are back in civilization. It’s chaotic? Yes, crammed? Yes, crowded? Definitely yes, but that hour spent in the bazaar takes you back to the ‘good old’ days.

The mission is not over yet, for it has to pass through ‘the review’. If there is no ‘female’ voice coming from the kitchen it means that the mission is a success. If there is, then may God be with you!!