Vijaya Stores and periods
The title should make you laugh out loud but here is fodder to your rational thoughts.
This particular store in the centre of Mylapore is very famous for a variety of items that concern with festivals and rituals. Function at home? Drive to Vijaya stores, they will have the ingredients to any ritual/ceremony. From sandal powder to offer to God, to idols of God Himself (any God for that matter, yours, mine) you name it you get it in their three storey building.
The shop is usually flooded with middle aged women from all over the city. The sales record reaches it peak during the Navaratri festival, for every middle-aged woman and every happily-married-or-not summangali in the town rushes to this place to get their hands on the best gift article introduced for the season. There are just way too many articles there that sometimes you pick an item and ask the sales person what it is (and then put it in your shopping cart because the other lady just bought it). Vijaya Stores totally takes advantage of these innocent victims who are blind to the newly painted old items that are recycled inside the sales department. But hey! If everyone is happy, why bother?
We were hosting a grand ceremony to mark the occasion of my father-in-law's (FIL's) 60th birthday. This was almost as grand an occasion as a wedding so we had a lot to prep for. Obviously the shopping for this had to be done in the shrine that is Vijaya Stores. We got a list of items to be purchased needed for the ceremony, some needed before and some after. But Vijaya Stores has the answer to all. It is a one-stop destination to cater to all vadhiyar mamas' (Hindi: Pandit; closest English word is 'priest') needs. You would think we just take the list, go there and pick up the stuffs but no. It doesn't work that way. Nothing is simple under God's nose. My mother-in-law picked the right date and time to go through the list given to us. And she picked the right date and time to go the store. This "auspicious" day to purchase passes a battery of tests like ammavasai (No moon day), rahukalam, Emagandam, Tuesdays, Saturdays etc. No one should have periods on the day we discuss to go to the shop. No one should have periods on the day we go to the shop. No one should have periods on the day of the function. If you have periods, you are out. If your friend has periods you are out. If your friend's sister has periods you are out. You see where I am going with this.
So on a fine day, or as they would call it, an auspicious day, we went to the store. The fragrance of incense sticks and camphor greeted us. The store was light up so bright and the devotional songs playing somewhere in the background almost got to my spiritual side. But then I remembered I didn't have one, yet. The shop was packed with women and sales girls. A young boy came up to us and offered to pack all the items in the list. He was adept and moved around the shop efficiently, bringing all that he could gather. He took out a pen from his pocket and starting checking off the items in the list. I noticed that it was a black pen. I was battling whether to tell my MIL or to politely tell him, but the guy shouted to someone in the store, "Hey bring me a blue pen." He didn't look like he had a lot of experience being a sales person but he must have had his moments there.
He put the items in a shopping basket and guided us to go to second and third floor to get the rest of the items. Apparently, his jurisdiction was only up to floor one. The second floor was deserted and there was one lone girl standing in the corner in the store uniform. We helped ourselves. While we were asking the girl about something in the list, my MIL's phone rang. She went outside to take it. I had time to kill so I started up a conversation with the sales girl.
"I have never seen you here. How long have you been working here?"
"About four months." She shifted her weight from one leg to another.
"Is the store crowded during week days too?"
"Yes, it is." She balanced on her right leg this time.
"Why don't you sit when there are no customers? Your legs must hurt standing all day."
"No, my boss doesn't like it if we sit."
"So you stand all day?"
"Not while we have our lunch." She smiled. I smiled back. "We take turns to go to the back of the store and sit there if there are no customers for a long time. But during festival, we don't get a chance."
I looked at her. She was definitely younger than me by a year or two.
"What do you do when you are on your periods? You can't touch anything here. Do you have to stand then too? Or do you take leave?" I couldn't imagine standing the whole day when I am on my periods.
"We can't take leave three days a month. We work here. We can touch things."
"But these are offered to God. You are not supposed to touch them, are you?"
"We don't get paid to not touch anything. We do regular sales everyday, periods or not. We just don't touch Hanuman and Ayyappan stuffs." I figured that much.
I let the irony sink in. I looked at my MIL who was still on call. I was sure she would have weighed these possibilities. This is probably why there are so many mantras before the rituals, to make everything pure. Or whatever. We bagged everything, paid the bill, thanked the sales girl and pushed our way out of the store.
This particular store in the centre of Mylapore is very famous for a variety of items that concern with festivals and rituals. Function at home? Drive to Vijaya stores, they will have the ingredients to any ritual/ceremony. From sandal powder to offer to God, to idols of God Himself (any God for that matter, yours, mine) you name it you get it in their three storey building.
The shop is usually flooded with middle aged women from all over the city. The sales record reaches it peak during the Navaratri festival, for every middle-aged woman and every happily-married-or-not summangali in the town rushes to this place to get their hands on the best gift article introduced for the season. There are just way too many articles there that sometimes you pick an item and ask the sales person what it is (and then put it in your shopping cart because the other lady just bought it). Vijaya Stores totally takes advantage of these innocent victims who are blind to the newly painted old items that are recycled inside the sales department. But hey! If everyone is happy, why bother?
We were hosting a grand ceremony to mark the occasion of my father-in-law's (FIL's) 60th birthday. This was almost as grand an occasion as a wedding so we had a lot to prep for. Obviously the shopping for this had to be done in the shrine that is Vijaya Stores. We got a list of items to be purchased needed for the ceremony, some needed before and some after. But Vijaya Stores has the answer to all. It is a one-stop destination to cater to all vadhiyar mamas' (Hindi: Pandit; closest English word is 'priest') needs. You would think we just take the list, go there and pick up the stuffs but no. It doesn't work that way. Nothing is simple under God's nose. My mother-in-law picked the right date and time to go through the list given to us. And she picked the right date and time to go the store. This "auspicious" day to purchase passes a battery of tests like ammavasai (No moon day), rahukalam, Emagandam, Tuesdays, Saturdays etc. No one should have periods on the day we discuss to go to the shop. No one should have periods on the day we go to the shop. No one should have periods on the day of the function. If you have periods, you are out. If your friend has periods you are out. If your friend's sister has periods you are out. You see where I am going with this.
So on a fine day, or as they would call it, an auspicious day, we went to the store. The fragrance of incense sticks and camphor greeted us. The store was light up so bright and the devotional songs playing somewhere in the background almost got to my spiritual side. But then I remembered I didn't have one, yet. The shop was packed with women and sales girls. A young boy came up to us and offered to pack all the items in the list. He was adept and moved around the shop efficiently, bringing all that he could gather. He took out a pen from his pocket and starting checking off the items in the list. I noticed that it was a black pen. I was battling whether to tell my MIL or to politely tell him, but the guy shouted to someone in the store, "Hey bring me a blue pen." He didn't look like he had a lot of experience being a sales person but he must have had his moments there.
He put the items in a shopping basket and guided us to go to second and third floor to get the rest of the items. Apparently, his jurisdiction was only up to floor one. The second floor was deserted and there was one lone girl standing in the corner in the store uniform. We helped ourselves. While we were asking the girl about something in the list, my MIL's phone rang. She went outside to take it. I had time to kill so I started up a conversation with the sales girl.
"I have never seen you here. How long have you been working here?"
"About four months." She shifted her weight from one leg to another.
"Is the store crowded during week days too?"
"Yes, it is." She balanced on her right leg this time.
"Why don't you sit when there are no customers? Your legs must hurt standing all day."
"No, my boss doesn't like it if we sit."
"So you stand all day?"
"Not while we have our lunch." She smiled. I smiled back. "We take turns to go to the back of the store and sit there if there are no customers for a long time. But during festival, we don't get a chance."
I looked at her. She was definitely younger than me by a year or two.
"What do you do when you are on your periods? You can't touch anything here. Do you have to stand then too? Or do you take leave?" I couldn't imagine standing the whole day when I am on my periods.
"We can't take leave three days a month. We work here. We can touch things."
"But these are offered to God. You are not supposed to touch them, are you?"
"We don't get paid to not touch anything. We do regular sales everyday, periods or not. We just don't touch Hanuman and Ayyappan stuffs." I figured that much.
I let the irony sink in. I looked at my MIL who was still on call. I was sure she would have weighed these possibilities. This is probably why there are so many mantras before the rituals, to make everything pure. Or whatever. We bagged everything, paid the bill, thanked the sales girl and pushed our way out of the store.
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