***** Consumerism *******

Dear All

By any chance, do you still remember Leo Tolstoy's one of the famous short story titled "How much land does a man need ?"......? Well, it could be relevant to remember this while you read this piece....Fine.....?

After a long period, couple of days back, along with my family, we went to a Shopping Mall opened up near our place. It is just 1 kilometer away from my home and got opened 1 year back, and we have crossed it at least 100 times so far......ALAS,.....time has to come for every thing, right ?

I was awe struck at the place reminding me of my days at Europe 8 years back; I was stationed there for little more than 6 months. The IKEA Supermarkets are quite popular at Sweden and I always enjoyed the mere presence into the mall 

{but sure enough to gather only those things which I wanted...!!} 

It is a paradox that the cost of the goods are much cheaper at these malls which is visited by mostly affordable people due to the economies of their scale. This shop which I visited is still not completed in terms of construction as well as occupancy (Cineplex are yet to come) but as such it was great to roam around the place as my wife and daughter were busy with their chores.

Well, as I was taking my stroll in the huge corridors of the various floors observing every bit of things which were made available for people, I realized that our - not our rich people - but our middle class people have been deprived of their basic right of CHOICE for such a long time without such malls for close to 40 years after independence. I remember clearly- when I used to be a kid at my daughter's age, the only supermarket that we know was "Spenzer Plaza" at Mount Road which has a special staircase called "escalator".

Phew.....Gone are those days, now we have at least 1 dozen such huge malls (at least) not just in chennai but coming up quite rapidly in B tier cities also........

Now, why do I get this type of topic particularly when -  deep within me, - neither I have any urge for shopping nor enjoy having things more than what it really matters to me ?

In a way, I welcome these type of malls - which really reveals us to ourselves ! When there are unlimited opportunities at AGANDAM, wise people choose to lead the life the way they want to without succumbing to worldly temptations, right ? Doesn't these shopping malls resemble the very  AGANDAM itself ? 

I think it will be perfectly sane to visit a mall, go thru' Ranganaathan street of T.Nagar and to walk around in any place on earth - if we keep our fundamentals in sync with this grand truth....

Love // Surendran aka Suchoo