I recently wrote about how my daughter and I went around trying to buy a gift for my wife’s 50th birthday but didn’t succeed. This is continuation of the same story.
In Part 1, I had written about how, after giving the world free advice on how to buy gifts for the woman you love, I found myself standing exactly where most husbands stand before their wife’s birthday – confused, guilty, afraid.
Then I roped in Rhea and together we went to Marina Mall. Even after two hours, and two Maharaja Macs we didn’t have a gift for my wife. And that is when we decided to focus on sarees – the last item on our list.
Rekha loves to drape sarees, and I love to see her in sarees…so it’s a win-win.
A saree is one of those gifts that can be romantic, personal, and dangerous at the same time. Dangerous because buying a saree for a woman is not like buying a shirt for a man.
If you gift a man a shirt, he will only ask only three things:
– Has anyone else worn it?
– Does it have buttons?
– How often do I have to wash it?
But saree? While buying a saree one has to consider fabric, comfort, drape, colour, border, pallu, blouse piece, transparency of the material, print quality, maintenance instructions, and whether the woman already has something similar.
And after all that, you also have to keep in mind lady’s personal taste and the exchange policy. Because saree is romantic but if the lady doesn’t like it romance can take a backseat till it is exchanged.
In order to get Rekha a saree, Rhea and I first went to Soch. We did not find anything that Rekha may like. As we stepped out, Rhea said, “How long has it been since we had our burgers?”
I looked at my watch.
“Maybe one hour. Seventy, seventy-five minutes. Why?”
She said, “Funny, I feel hungry. Shall I get a few doughnuts from Krispy Kreme?”
I looked at her but she avoided eye contact. I think inside every teenager there is a hungry wolf that takes its commission from everything they eat.
And then it occurred to me… my daughter was trying to milk the occasion. But she had forgotten my grandfather was not just a shepherd…he had had twenty cows as well. So milking runs in the genes. So I didn’t budge.
Finally, we walked into Avantra, which is Trends’ ethnic wear section.
The moment I entered, I remembered why men avoid buying sarees alone – there are too many choices.
I think attendants in saree shops behave differently based on who has come to buy the saree.
If a man comes alone, they know he wants to finish quickly and get out alive. If a single woman comes, they know she may take time but will have clarity and end up buying. If a group of women comes, they know the next two hours of their life are gone and still nobody may buy anything.
Women will ask to see one hundred and fifty sarees, reject one hundred and forty-eight, keep two aside, then say, “We will come back,” and leave. Men will look at ten sarees, get tired, panic, and then buy one.
When the attendant approached us, both Rhea and I acted as if we had bought hundreds of sarees before.
Then he asked his first question and almost exposed my fake bravado. He said, “Sir, what kind of saree are you looking for?”
We had no clue…but as you know, we Rajans don’t buckle easily.
When the going gets tough, we Rajans get going.
So I dug deep, put on my most confident expression, and said, “Show me what all you got.”
I may have stumped the attendant with my smart response, because the very next moment he waved to one side and said, “Sir, this side we have cotton sarees.”
Then he waved to another side and said, “And on this side, we have silk, linen, georgette, chiffon, and crepe sarees.”
That is when I made a note to myself. If I ever open a saree shop and a man walks in, I will never tell him where which saree is on display. I will let him roam around the whole shop, get tired, and lose interest in living, and that’s when I will show him a nice saree and quote the price…which he will immediately pay and go home to sleep.
Since we knew that we wanted a cotton saree for Rekha…we started walking towards that section.
The attendant pointed to one shelf and said, “Sir, this shelf has
sarees on discount.”
Now, let me be very clear that Rajans love a good bargain but we are not cheap. It is not that we don’t respect discounts…we do. A discount is a businessman’s way of taking part of his customer’s pain, and making it their own.
But this was Rekha’s 50th birthday….so it couldn’t have been a discount. Plus, I had my daughter with me….and we all know children have no filter.
Imagine me giving Rekha the saree and saying, “Happy birthday, Rekha,” and Rhea immediately jumping in and saying, “Amma, you won’t believe what a lovely deal we got.”
Romance would have died right there.
So, after making sure Rhea was listening, I asked the attendant, “Is there a shelf where the opposite of sale is going on?”
He looked confused. “I don’t understand, sir,” he said.
“This is for my wife,” I said. “The woman I have known for twenty-five years. Do you have a shelf of sarees where you are not reducing the price but charging more than what it actually costs?”
He smiled politely. “Sir, such a concept doesn’t exist. We only have discounts.”
The poor fellow did not understand marriage. Sometimes husbands don’t want discount….they want to pay extra and later claim, “I didn’t even look at the price while I was getting it for you.”
Once the attendant started showing us the sarees, I realized that every saree looked nice….but then every saree also looked risky.
I didn’t count, but the attendant must have shown us at least 100+ sarees. At some point I felt as if I was playing Fruit Ninja.
The attendant would throw one saree on the table, and if I didn’t like it, I would mentally slash it and he would keep it aside.
If I liked it, I would pick it up and keep it on my right.
Rhea’s contribution during this phase was minimal. In fact, I will be honest here – the only meaningful contribution my daughter made during this entire birthday shopping mission was the Maharaja Mac she had eaten.
Whenever I asked, “What do you think?”
She would say, “I don’t know. Not sure if Amma will like that. What do you think?”
After about twenty minutes of sorting, I had eight sarees on my right.
The problem with buying sarees for Rekha is that she looks pretty good in sarees. This may sound like a husband praising his wife….yes it is…but it is also a practical problem.
Let me explain. Now, if your wife looks good in some sarees and average in some sarees, your job is easier. You buy one saree, and if she doesn’t look good …you can blame it on the saree.
But when your wife looks good in all sarees, and then she ends up looking average in the saree you got her…it can’t be the saree’s fault. It becomes YOUR blunder.
And that’s the predicament I was in, as I looked at the eight shortlisted sarees.
Women may divide sarees into many categories: cotton, silk, linen, chiffon, georgette, office wear, festive wear, casual wear, occasion wear, day wear, evening wear, temple wear, “I bought this but haven’t found the right blouse yet” wear.
But when it comes to Rekha, I divide sarees into two categories – bright and vibrant & classic and elegant.
The bright ones make her look like a flower that has just bloomed, and the classic ones make her look like she owns the room, the building, the street, and also the poor husband standing beside her holding the handbag.
Among the eight sarees, five were vibrant and three were classic…but all eight were shouting “pick me!”
I looked at Rhea, but she was confused. Probably still wondering if we will stop by at Krispy Kreme before we head home.
So I bought two sarees – one vibrant and one classic. And that, my dear friends, was my gift to Rekha for her 50th birthday.
Don’t think it was just two sarees – it was love, folded, billed, packed, and carried home carefully.
Of course, it is possible that Rekha may exchange one or both of them. And that’s why I have kept the bill intact. We will know within the next 15 days.
Note: Rekha, if you are reading…you should know that the returns are possible only within 15 days of purchase and the bill is in the whiskey glass in the living room cupboard.