Oru Serruppin Kadhai - Part II

After dreaming about the shoes the previous night, I decided to try my luck at Brigade road Puma outlet. I called one of my other friends to accompany me to Brigade road since he had never seen Brigade road before. Describing it as one of the best hangouts in Bangalore, I kept hyping about Brigade road to my friend.A few minutes later we entered Brigade road with small sweet corn cups. I looked at him and said proudly "This is it!". He looked around and surprise. "Thats it??? It resembles Madurai Town Hall road!". Imagine my disappointment at that comparison.I thuppified him and we continued walking. And then there it was!!! the Puma outlet!! We hurried in. People were looking at us oddly. I guess we werent exactly "The Brigade Road Material". We chose to ignore them. But then, once we were at the shoes section they chose to ignore us!! and the worst part was I was not even able to distinguish customers from salespersons!!I turned my attention towards the display. Imagine my disappointment when the shoes I was searching for was not on display. My friend suggested that I give the salespeople some description about the shoe I was searching for. We found one guy and asked him for the shoe.He said that he ll try searching for it and disappeared.

He returned with a huge box. I got a little excited. He went past me and handed over the box to another female standing next to me. He looked at me and said "Sorry Ma'am, but we have loads of shoes which fit that description. White is a pretty common colour!". Disappointed we made our way to the first floor where guys shoes were on display. Suddenly I remembered a better description for the shoes. I found a saleswoman nearby and told her "I have come in search of a white colour shoes. It has 60% off tag on it". She understood which pair of shoes I was talking about and described them to me. I happily nodded in agreement. "Sorry Ma'am, but that is an old stock. We have only fresh stock here. You could probably try it in Garuda mall." We thanked her, cursed our luck and made our way to Garuda Mall.

My excitement had waned by then and I stared enthu-lessly at the Puma outlet. We had gotten so tired by then that I decided to buy something before I left the shop. We stared blankly at the shoes on display.Brilliant! It wasn't here also. I guess I had already anticipated that. My friend, who has never ever been able to differentiate between different sports shoes found it rather amusing that I was so particular about the shoes. "How come you like some shoes better than the others? They all look the same to me! Some have a vague pink touch to them. So I assume that they are girls shoes.Am I right?" he asked, proud at his discovery. Then he suddenly realised that certain shoes were narrower than others! He decided Narrow small shoes with pink shades are what girls wear!

I had given up all hopes by then and decided to buy some other shoes. But nothing even came close to the one I had seen before. Suddenly my friend pointed out a shoe to me. Though he wasn't sure if it was girls shoe since it didn't have any pink shade to it. I loved it!! I asked the salesman to get my size. He got a pair. It was too tight. I asked him to get the bigger size. That was too loose!! I had very badly wanted to buy. I went around walking trying on the two different pairs. It seemed like the smaller one felt more comfortable on my left foot and the bigger one on my right foot. I was tempted to ask the salesman if they would sell it to me that way!

By then I had started losing my patience. Then my friend suggested that I buy the bigger one and wear thicker socks if needed. That sounded like a better idea than squeezing my feet into those mouse traps. Fine then, all decided. We went to bill the shoes. 30% off was all I got. The price was almost double the previous one. Even as I was reconciling myself to that heartbreak the guy at the counter asks me"Thats it? No socks?" I said "No Thanks! that would be it" "You should always buy new socks when you buy a new pair of shoes. It kind of completes it!" I looked at him wearily. "No thanks! that would be it" I repeated.

But I felt happy the moment we stepped out of the showroom. I was holding this big Puma cover flaunting it, for the entire world to see! That night I dreamt of the shoes..

This was probably the second biggest purchase I had made! The first one being a tent like salwar kameez!