Peep Peep

Stores like Fab India, Anokhi, Cottons have a lot in common apart from the kind of clothes they sell. It is their I-am-doing-you-a-favour-by-selling-you-my-stuff attitude. In short, a very Dilli attitude.

I end up visiting these shops 'coz they are the only ones who seem to be stocking kurtas / kurtis which fit me. It has been years since I shopped at Fab India - read link.

I visited Cottons in N-Block, GK I in New Delhi last week. These guys seem to think that every customer is a shoplifter. Unless you are dressed in silk kurtas-salwar, putting one kilo lipstick and makeup and talk "dahlling" like a South Delhi-ite or "hainjeeee" like a Punju maami, you definitely come under the shop lifter category for Cottons. From the looks they give you, it is very obvious that they will assign one ollipicchan girl who will follow you like a Vodafone puppy wherever you go.

I have one more important reason to say this. How else would you explain a changing room that looks like this?

That pic was clicked from the inside of the changing room. Inside... where you could see everything on the outside AND VICE VERSA. So a passerby can actually peep into your changing room as you are trying to fit yourself into yet another 'L' kurta. That was the first time I saw a changing room with a mirror outside the room. You will actually need to get out of the pigeon hole also called as changing room to look at your wonderful self in the 'L' kurta. Its not just you, even the employees can see you with the HALF DOOR that opens into the changing room.

The store room [locked in the pic] is located right next to the changing room. Obviously the employees - particularly men who walk into the store room get their daily, hourly, minute by minute dose of 'deiva darisanam' as people try fitting into the clothes.

As I could see, these people at Cottons do have their stringent measures like giving a coupon marked with the number of clothes you take inside the pigeon hole, to curb shop lifters.

I am still trying to figure out what prompted the owners to have a changing room like this which provides a free view for all. There was not one, but two pigeon holes. The other room faced the entrance directly.

So here goes another shop out of my list. If anyone from Cottons is reading this - Aunty-jies, not everyone who visits your shop is a shop lifter. Grow up people!