[some more pics on lazygeek photoblog]
Wanting to have a good detailed look the show, though I had no intentions of buying anything, I did wander around the Hindu sponsored Lifestyle Show like a kid lost in some festival. I made it on the Friday evening itself, to avoid the weekend rush hungama. Someone who went on Sunday complained that he didn’t even get a full coconut poli to eat in the food court, not to mention the very very overcrowded exhibition center.
Even as you enter the show, you shell out forty bucks as an entrance fee. Forty bucks. That’s a huge amount for an exhibition. Unlike other lifestyle shows which are organized in the little kalyana mandapams, this one was organized in the spacious trade centre. Each store had it’s ample space which was very appreciable. Worth the money that I paid on the entrance.
The Hindu had it’s own display right in one corner of the show where they had vintage pictures of Olympics. Their VIP lounge was as small as their ads on weekend classifieds. People had to bump on each other to see what’s going on inside. And when I tried the stunt, I saw someone like Pepsi Uma chatting with someone like Prashant. Before I could confirm their existence, an excited teenager was already trying to stand on my shoulders and peek inside, so I withdrew, swearing against the organizers.
The automobile stores had real cars parked inside and a family was seriously inspecting a Ford car for more than 45 minutes. I did a whole glance of the show and came back to the same store to see the father was doing something with the steering and the mom inspecting the headlights very meticulously. When I went it was the vice versa. The salesman was already sweating was having a panicked look of having troublesome customers. I did give him a friendly laugh and I think he got the sense.
All the homemakers (inclusive of grandmas, aunties and moms) who were accustomed to watch the evening Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin did take a leave and assembled for the show. There were northies than the southies. The crowd was only in the pakistani choli shop and in the carpet/mats shops. With a huge variety of shops, it was a real entertainment for them, especially.
If there is one shop were everyone bought things, including me, was the one dollar shop. Deriving the idea from the US where $1 shops are primarily used only by desis to buy toiletries and gifts for the Indian relatives (that’s what they do and it’s a fact), this one dollar shop was also damn interesting. Cheap look-alikes of Nivea and St.Ives were also found. Bu interestingly they had some real nice coffee mugs for a throw away price.
Finally the food zone, which had some real good restaurants like Copper Chimney (where you pay through your nose) and China Town were present. But with their usual speed of serving dishes, I only thought, they would have tough time coping up with the rush on weekends.
If you are a yuppie, earning big bucks from a MNC firm and a little spendthrift, you can loose thousands in such shows. While such shows display the luxuries in life than what you actually have now, they are definitely a hole in someone’s wallet. If you were present on the weekend to this lifestyle show, the first thing you do on the monday is to walk into your boss’s room asking for him for a hike.
