It had been a long day. Tears unexpectedly appeared with pressure behind my eyes like an unexpected and unwanted guest persistently ringing the doorbell. I froze in front of my laptop, I leaned forward slightly so that my hair became a long, shaggy, blonde curtain; allowing some privacy. It was near six and I was sitting at my desk, the one next to my boss’ desk. The very last thing I wanted was for Sundeep to see me so close to tears.
I didn’t really know why I felt that way, or where the tears had come from. Sometimes events accumulate. They collect inside you, stacked like dominoes until the tension is too great—and then they exit your body as tears.
I didn’t cry today. Instead, I went shopping. A little retail therapy is always good for the soul of a woman when she’s not in the best of moods. So I took a rickshaw to Sarojini Nagar Market.
Amidst the chaos, I was there with purpose. I needed to buy clothes, new clothes that fit me. I’ve lost weight since I’ve been here in Delhi, and my pants are ridiculously large. My legs hide within the baggy elephant legs. I walked past the real stores, trying not to look, as I knew everything behind their polished glass retail fronts would cost more than I had in my wallet.
I saw one stall with some newish looking corduroys on the racks. So I stopped, stood at the rack and began leafing through the layers for some pants that were all together cute, sexy, fitting, and absolutely “me”. I will only buy something if it makes me feel gorgeous. That’s my rule. If I’m not completely in love with something, I won’t buy it.
So I made my way from the front of the store to the back, and I found a pair of jeans that looked like they might fit the above criteria. But I kept hewing and hawing to and fro with the sales man. He wanted to sell them to me. But I didn’t want to take them without being perfectly sure that they fit.
"Can’t I just, sssssshhhwissssshhh?” I asked, demonstrating a quick slide on of the jeans, as though I were pulling them up.
“This is a public place…” he said.
“Um, please?” Eyes transformed into two glass pools of pleading.
“Well, perhaps you could change back there. We don’t normally let customers do this.”
“But what about that man, is he going to look?”
No, of course not.
I’m sure.
“Well, maybe if you could just hold up this scarf as a curtain, no, higher, that’s fine, then I’ll just try these on.”
I took off my scarf, a big blue sarong I’ve had since the debacle with Peter, and he held it up as a curtain while I slipped on the jeans. I tried on three pairs. Bingo! The last pair fit! I paid for them with a smile. He even gave me a better deal than what he gives most. Though after all was said and done, I realized how foolish I had been.
I had pushed the envelope, an aspect of myself that is always trying to break barriers, step beyond bars, and reach out to and connect with people’s humanity, the side that will break the rules, just this once. This is the side I always try to reach. But this time, I didn’t feel elated, I felt cheap. Cheap and blonde. No Indian woman would ever do what I just did, regardless of leaving the store with a perfectly fitting pair of jeans. If they aren’t doing this, then what am I doing? Doubts began to catch up with me.
However, I still needed more retail therapy, so I kept walking, kept shopping, and I left the market with some beautiful clothes. With articles of clothing that I would wear, and that I would feel beautiful in. It was a good journey. And I left with a lighter heart. Retail therapy.
As the rickshaw pulled away from the market into the dark, crowded, Delhi night, I laughed quietly to myself.
“Way to reinforce the blonde stereotype, G,” I thought to myself, with a snicker.
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