Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Shopping spree with my son

Yes it was long overdue. Because, we shopped for the school uniform once a year and for casuals, football freaks that they were, the dress code after school hours was the football jersey as I have mentioned in my earlier blog. A couple of times when we had gone shopping, we came back empty handed as they were at that stage where their size was not available.

Finally the day arrived when we simply had to go shopping for my elder son as he told us that his wardrobe had now reached a pitiable state. After some enquiries, one of our cousins recommended one particular shop highly for its range. So that is how we set out on a shopping spree with my son. It was quite late when we started but then I told myself "well how long would it take for us to shop, especially for boys?" The idea was to pick up a couple of T-shirts, couple of pairs of trousers and following the current trend of typical teenagers  couple of shirts which otherwise was never on his list before. 

We finally reached the shop after juggling through the peak hour traffic. Once I stepped into the shop I was quite amazed to see the range that was on offer. There was so much of choice, not only for teenagers but for all age groups. Added to this the outfits were reasonably priced. It was sheer bliss to see different coloured T-shirts, shirts and jeans which actually fit him perfectly.

After the salesman showed us where his size T-shirts were stacked we started the process of selection. I asked my son to pick up some brighter shades as most of his T-shirts were black. I picked up a few  T-shirts which I thought he would like, but he told me that it had too much writing on it. So I picked up something with motif which was rejected. Some T-shirts he did not like as he did not like the feel of it. To my utter dismay I found the endless choice before me dwindling. Finally and not quite surprisingly he picked up his all time favourite black T-shirt and a green one. 

Next we went to the shirts section. My son was looking for checked, half sleeve shirts. I found many such shirts with nice colourful stripes and checks. To make his work easier and since we had spent considerable time in the previous section, I decided to help him and started showing him shirts which I thought would look good on him. An emphatic NO each time either because he felt the checks were too big or too small or the colour was not to his liking, or the one which he liked had a thin orange stripe in between instead of blue (which I noticed only after he told me) and so on and so forth. Phew! I was left panting and my head reeling. Exasperated I told him maybe in future he could design his own wear! Finally he managed to pick up one shirt. Imagine out of hundreds he could find only one to his liking but here I cannot deny the fact that so far whatever he had chosen was definitely good. 

Finally we were down to one last item - the pair of jeans. Even here he asked to be shown different varieties as he did not like something with stitched motiffs, some of the stone washed pattern and so on and so forth. By this time I was totally drained out of energy and just sat down on the sofa. I left my son with the harried salesman. Finally he had chosen one. We paid the bill and left thanking the poor salesman for being so patient. 

We had spent almost two and half to three hours in the shop to buy four items. For a person who does not like to spend much time on shopping, this was quite an eyeopener. The general perception is that girls are more choosy and take longer time. Boy! was I wrong. When talking to some of  my friends with teenage boys I realised that my son was not an exception. This was another phase I got to see of my teenaged boy - must say it sure was a memorable shopping experience.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

The radio days

Sunday....... the day when we all love to laze around in bed, where my children ask me not to wake them up early, in other words my days are loooonger and things get done very late. That being the case, this sunday when I went to the kids room at around nine in the morning I found both the kids listening to some songs on the radio. Yes - the good old radio.The very own radio which Marconi patented. The radio which was a much prized purchase for all those people who went abroad those days. Who can ever forget the evergreen picture of  a person holding the radio on his shoulder and a suitcase in the other hand showing proudly to the world his most prized possession?

My father-in-law has a radio which he switches on everyday at five in the morning. He listens to devotional songs and at six one can listen to the ageless voice of M.S. Subbulakshmi singing the Venkatesha Suprabhatam. Since the radio is very old and sometimes goes off tune, my mother gifted a radio to him on his birthday. Yes it is difficult to find a radio in electronic shops these days. However call it sentimental value my father-in-law preferred his old radio. My younger son then got it to his room and now both my children listen to music on the radio.

Today when I found both of them lying on the bed and listening to music on the radio it brought back memories of my days. I remember as kids we grew up listening to the radio. It started with early morning news which my dad would be listening as he would be shaving and then as we used to get ready for school, we would be listening to stations like vividhbharathi which would play kannada film songs.  In the night again the radio was switched on at seven for the evening news followed by songs till about eight thirty in the night. So you can say it was almost a daily ritual and was a crucial part of our daily routine.

When we were in our teens we got hooked onto western music and the popular bands like Abba and Boney M were our favourites. I still remember western songs were played only on sundays at twelve. At eleven forty five the four of us would huddle together near the radio and tune into the songs. At times we  would valiantly try to copy down the wordings which were difficult to understand because of the different accent. We also used to listen to quiz programmes and used to enjoy matching our wits against those faceless participants.

During our study time also we had the habit of listening to music on radio and now I find my children also getting into this habit. My husband being a cricket freak reminisces how he would get up early in the morning at around five or so to listen to live commentary when matches were played abroad. Not only that he also used to follow the election results and very methodically would draw up spread sheets of the results. So you can say that radio was an indispensable part of our life. The link to outside world along with newspapers.

After revolution in technology radio slowly took a backseat and disappeared totally from our life. Infact there was a day when my kids were very young when we were talking about radio they asked us what a radio was? At that time it struck us as to how long we had travelled in life.

But today thanks to FM stations, radio seems to have arrived back with a bang or should I say music? So happy listening to all you guys there who grew up listening to radio.