Metropolitan encounter

This is the first-hand experience of my friend, who went to Bangalore recently to visit his daughter and son residing in Bangalore. He is a small town-er, where the life is very much laid-back. This is not his first tryst with the metropolitan city, nonetheless, he found it quite enchanting, this time. He narrates his story......

'I went to a mall in Bangalore (the city, where my son-in-law works) with my daughter's family. It is about a week back. The car was winding up and up and up to get a parking slot.... I was wondering whether we were going to a hill station.... How many floors we were climbing up, I lost count. May be 8 or 9! Each floor has space for about 300 cars, which works out to roughly 2,500 cars or a little more, in total. Considering on an average of 3 people per car, at least about 7,500 to 8,000 people must be inside the mall, doing shopping, window-grazing, eating, children playing games, and some simply loitering....

'We went to a footwear shop.  No place to even sit and try out the wear. Crowded....! Just chose something on display, tried out, standing (cannot find space to walk with the new footwear on). Assumed that it would be alright..... went to the counter to pay for it. There again a lo....ng queue! Waited for our turn..... I wondered why they charged Rs. 3 as "packing charge". Are they not supposed to give a neat box for the new footwear....? The counter-clerk was not even ready to see my questioning face! I left without a murmur...'

'Then we went to have dinner there itself. Entered the 'food court' serving all kinds of food items (Chinese,  Italian, Thai, Indonesian and what not....). Problem was all seats were taken by different types of clientele. As I preferred 'desi' type of food, we went into a Karnataka special hotel. Were all the people who entered the mall are here, I wondered! An usher was noting down how many of us wanted to have food. Since there was no other better (alternative) choice, we had to settle for this, and waited for our luck to smile. Our time also came finally... We occupied the seats and the next process of ordering our choice started. It took about 15 minutes to  get our food. The unfortunate bevy of people waiting for their chance of getting the seats were hovering over our heads. We finished our food soon and made room for those bunch of people. Winding down in our car, in the spiral path, we came out of the mall and reached home in time to sleep....'. My daughter told me that this was a small mall and so I can imagine the conditions in other bigger malls in the city.....'

'Another day, I went to a car dealer, with my son, my daughter-in-law and two grandsons. First I thought we had come to a mall, really..... Such a crowd.....! As if to buy the daily needed grocery.....! People planning to buy their new cars.... Are there so many people trying to either buy their cars for the first time, or changing their cars, or buying additional cars for the family....? I was dumb-struck! Family after family scrutinizing the new models, especially the kids occupying the driver seat, and refusing to quit! Different members of the family looking out for different things.... some worried about the look, the size (comparing with that of their neighbors' cars)..... some with the driving comfort, seating capacity, boot space etc..... the person to shell out the dough crunching out the numbers in his mobile calculator.... What a sight to watch....! All visitors invariably get (free) biscuits, coffee/tea, water, chocolate (for kids). It was a nice experience.... My son's family, after a while of doing all sorts of research, zeroed in on to a particular model, of course, counting the opinion of the kids....'

'And yet another day, we all went to a 'pizza' outlet for dinner. There again, we had to wait for our seats to be arranged as all members of our family (daughter & family, son & family and my wife) went there for pizza dinner. It was a small joint with a single stove..... Besides catering to the in-house customers, they were also supplying lot of parcels through delivery boys. We waited for our pizza (different varieties) to be served. In the melee, the person who took our Order forgot one pizza variety, despite (we) waiting for a long time. We said 'never mind' and finished our dinner'.

'I had not spoken about the inordinate delay in reaching any spot without experiencing the infamous traffic jams in the city. What a hectic life! The younger generation is used to all this busy life. The old timers like me (who are used to the calm and unhurried life-style) find it very difficult to cope with. Anyway that is life...'!

Hey! I forgot to mention that my friend is none other than the author of this article himself... He He!