Bye-bye buy-buy

Don’t waste time shopping on your travels; enjoy the destination instead

The one question you are guaranteed to be asked when you come back from vacation is: “Did any shopping?” Or perhaps: “What did you buy?”

In my case, the answer is always a resounding: “Nothing at all!”

Frankly, the last thing I feel like doing on holiday is shopping. Why would I want to spend hours in some poky shop or a soulless department store or even a tony boutique when I could be pounding the streets of a new destination and getting to know it better? Why would I try on yet another linen shirt in a badly-lit changing room when I could be out there, downing a drink while getting my fill of an amazing sunset? Why would I want to browse through endless racks of shoes when there are restaurants to check out and museums to visit?

Short answer is: I wouldn’t. I have never really seen the point of shopping when I am on holiday. And now, even more so, when thanks to the homogenization of our world, no matter where you go, the same brands and labels thrust themselves in your face in city after city.

It doesn’t matter whether you are in London, Paris, Rome, Lisbon, Johannesburg or Buenos Aires, the same luxury brands – Chanel, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Armani, Versace – crop up again and again. It is much the same story in the mid-market segment, or on the high street. Zara rubs shoulders with Marks and Spencer; H&M sits cheek by jowl with Topshop; L’Occitane chugs along nicely with Body Shop. And when it comes to liquor or perfume, the same labels are available all over the world (though the duty-free zone after you’ve checked in for your return flight is still your best bet).

So why waste time shopping on holiday when – no matter what your taste or your budget – you can buy pretty much the same stuff in your own city? In fact, some of the brands are actually cheaper back home than they are abroad – with the added bonus that you don’t have the palaver of finding space in your suitcase, and then worry about the excess baggage fees you will have to cough up at the airport.

I can see some of you shaking your heads sadly at this. Surely, you say, there is so much more to shopping in foreign parts than just clothes, bags and beauty products. There are, for instance, indigenous arts and crafts that I should be hoovering up and bringing back home to serve as mementoes of my travels. Those lovely silk cushions from Bangkok; that landscape portrait the roadside artist painted by the Seine; wooden carvings from Africa; the list goes on and on.

Well, thanks but no thanks. The truth is that there is nothing I find more dispiriting than the ‘souvenirs’ that are on display for the benefit of unsuspecting travellers in every great city of the world. More often than not, they are not even made in the place they claim to represent, having been mass produced in some factory in China. (On a recent trip to Venice I discovered that the face masks on display around St Marks Square and the glass that purported to come from Murano were actually the work of Chinese manufacturers, who can knock them off at a much cheaper price.) And while they may look nice and exotic while hanging in the shop window, they look cheap and nasty when you bring them back and grant them pride of place in your home.

The only shops I make an exception for in my travels are those that sell food and groceries. I can spend an entire afternoon in markets that sell fruits, vegetables and flowers. I revel in the colours – the bright red of the apples, the shocking orange of the tangerines, the green of the asparagus. I inhale the wonderful smells – of everything from the narcissus blooms to the heaps of dried lavender. I may not buy anything more than a few persimmons and a bunch of tulips, but just feasting my eyes on all that plenty is enough to keep me satiated.

The other places I love browsing through are the food halls at supermarkets across the world. Just looking at all the stuff on display – the endless varieties of sausages, cold meats, cheese, yoghurt, bakery products, chocolates, etc. – and watching the shoppers fill their trolleys makes me feel as if I am part of the tapestry of everyday life in the city, a local if you will, if only in my own mind.

In fact, it is only in food shops that I relax my no-shopping-on-holiday rule. There is a special pleasure in coming back to your hotel, laden with local, ready-to-eat delicacies, and fashioning an impromptu picnic in your room. And sometimes these treats are so delicious that you can’t resist buying a few more to bring back home, so that the taste of the holiday lingers in your life for just a little bit longer.

The Sachertorte from Vienna; the musk melon from Bangkok; the chorizo from Barcelona; the egg tart from Lisbon; a tiny truffle from Piedmont. 

Now these are things it is worth making space in your suitcase for. Tourist tat? Designer brands? Perfume and liquor? Not so much.

  

Shop till you drop?

It may not be such a good idea when holidaying abroad

The first question my friends ask me whenever I return after a trip abroad is: "So, what did you buy?" Over the last few years, though, my answer has never varied: "Nothing."

And no, that's not because I have given up on the material world, and decided to eschew shopping altogether. It is because there really is nothing you can buy abroad that is not also available in India. And when that's the case, shopping abroad makes no sense at all. You don't have to worry about going over your luggage allowance on the trip home. You can pay in rupees. And you don't have to run the gauntlet of customs when you fly back into the country.

But there was a time when things were very different. That was when before any kind of foreign travel, for work or pleasure, all of us would meticulously draw up a list of must-buys. In the bad old days, the list included such items as Levi's jeans and perfume. In my own case, it ran to skin care creams, lingerie, and of course, shoes (and shoes, and many more shoes).

These days, however, you don't need to travel any further than your friendly neighbourhood luxury mall to make the same kind of purchases. There is a Sephora for all your make-up and cosmetic needs (though the one in Delhi has had serious service issues every time I visited). Every skin care range from Clinique to Estée Lauder has its own outlet here. Chanel stocks make-up that actually works for Indian skin tones here, which you never find in their stores abroad. And M.A.C. Cosmetics stores are a dime a dozen (though the brand has an annoying habit of discontinuing every lipstick shade you take a shine to).

If designer brands are your thing, then nearly every one of them is present in the metros. And often it is cheaper to buy a Bottega Veneta bag or a Canali suit in India, because the mark-ups are much lower than they are at some stores abroad. Best of all, you can hit the sales on the first day and get the most amazing bargains (here's a little tip: visit the store the evening before and mark out the things you fancy; saves time and effort when the shop is heaving with the sales-crowd).

It wasn't too long ago that you had to stock up on your artisanal extra virgin olive oil, your Japanese soya, or your Sriracha and Chipotle sauces on your trips abroad. Now the longest distance you have to travel is to the nearest Nature's Basket (though, here again, service can be an issue at times) and you can buy every variety of pasta, gluten-free food items, cheese, cold meat, and choose from a range of a gazillion condiments and sauces.

So, what does one buy abroad? Well, the only thing that still survives on my list is (you guessed it!): shoes. Yes, you have your Christian Louboutins and Jimmy Choos at the high end here, while Next and Charles and Keith occupy the mid-market space. Even Furla is now open for business in India, as is Steve Madden (great for winter boots, by the way, if you are looking). But alas, my own personal favourite, L.K. Bennet, is still fighting shy of establishing an Indian presence. On the bright side, though, this allows me to go shoe shopping on holiday, which is always a pleasure.

Apart from this one indulgence, however, I have quite given up on shopping while abroad. It makes no sense to waste time and money on going into the same brand stores abroad to buy the same merchandise that I could so easily purchase in India. Which is why these days, when I venture abroad, instead of focusing on things, I make a conscious decision to invest in experiences that I could never get in India.

So, a visit to Thailand turns into a culinary adventure as I eat on the streets, in food courts, the occasional fancy restaurant, and then sign up for cooking classes to replicate some of the dishes I have enjoyed so much at home. The hot and humid afternoons are given over to Thai massages (stop sniggering, these are not the kind that have a 'happy ending') and foot reflexology. If you are into this kind of thing, do visit the traditional massage training centre at the Bangkok temple called Wat Pho. It is an experience you will never forget.

In Europe, I spend my time and money on booking guided tours to much-in-demand museums as the Uffizi and the Louvre. Not only does this save me from the horrendous queues, it also means that I get the benefit of being shown around by an expert in art history, who knows all the high spots and hidden gems of the collections, and can separate the Great Masters from the Also Rans for me.

And in great cities like London, New York, Paris, Florence or Rome, I simply spend my time roaming the streets, marvelling at the architectural wonders around every corner and in each city square, stopping occasionally for a coffee or a glass of wine depending on the time of day (or night). There really is no better way to get to know a city, to plump its depths, to touch its soul, than to trawl its streets.

So, the next time you travel abroad, don’t bother with the shops. Just focus on the country/city instead. You can always thank me later!

Taking a break?

Travel the world if you want to; but don’t knock the humble ‘family holiday’

Chances are that you are reading this either while planning a holiday, enjoying a break, or recovering from the rigours of a family vacation. Yes, this is the holiday season, when everyone who can afford it gets away from the heat as fast as they possibly can.

And these days we are all spoilt for choice, aren’t we? We can hit the beaches of Goa or Koh Samui, depending on our budget. We can enjoy the mountain air in Manali, Shimla or even Switzerland, if our money stretches that far. We can trek in Nepal; go shopping in Dubai; watch plays in London; golf in Scotland; sample the best of Renaissance art in Italy; indulge in a bit of wine-tasting in France or the Napa Valley; gorge – or gag, it depends entirely on you – on authentic Chinese fare in Shanghai or Beijing.

As far as holidays are concerned, the sky (and of course, our bank balance) is the limit. And even then, there’s nothing we enjoy more than pushing the limits. A week spent river-rafting in the wilds of the South American jungle? Bring it on. A fortnight in the icy wilderness of Greenland getting in touch with our inner Innuit? Why ever not? Walking up the slopes of active volcanoes in New Zealand? Count us in.

These days, everyone wants to push the envelope when it comes to holidays. It’s no longer enough to go tiger-watching in Ranthambore, Pench or Bandhavgarh. You have to go on a safari in Africa or better still, watch from the sidelines when the annual migration of wildebeest takes place in Kenya. Chilling out on the beaches of Kovalam is now passé. These days you must head out to Croatia, the new jewel of the Mediterranean. And Nainital and Darjeeling are now spoilt beyond belief; if you want to enjoy the mountains then Ladakh is where it’s at.

It sounds great doesn’t it? After all, who would pass up the opportunity to see the world in all its glory, sample the delights – both culinary and cultural – it has to offer, and explore every nook and cranny of our beautiful planet. If we live in a global village, then I guess it behoves us to get acquainted with all its secret gardens. And great fun it is too.

And yet, even as I scour the internet looking for the best deals on hotels and airline fares, there is a tiny little part of me that misses the good old days when holidays were more about family time and less about seeing the world. When we spent our vacations bonding with assorted uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and a veritable army of cousins rather than discovering the delights of gelato or the finer points of bull-fighting. When taking a break didn’t necessarily involve breaking the bank.

Growing up, I spent all my school vacations visiting various members of our extended – and, to be honest, fairly extensive – family. The summers were invariably spent at my aunt’s tea garden in Assam. And the holiday started from the time we boarded the train from Sealdah station, me armed with a stack of Amar Chitra Kathas and my mother with a lot of patience. Snack-time came with every station we stopped at, with deep-fried samosas and pakoras being scoffed down with hot, milky tea drunk from terracotta bhands (yes, I know, it sounds a bit vulgar, but it just means a tea-cup).

The high point of the journey was the ferry transfer across the Brahmaputra, which put all those geography lessons in perspective. And then, there was the rickety jeep-ride to the tea garden itself, with us indefatigable kids singing loudly and I fear quite tunelessly in the back while the adults struggled to stay upright on those long and winding roads.

And then followed a few weeks of absolute bliss, when you never needed to do anything you didn’t want to. There were no mandatory early mornings to catch the sunrise on the beach; no traipsing around museums feigning interest in the Dutch masters and dinosaur models; no endless shopping trips for our moms to drag us on. Instead, my assorted cousins and I ran quite wild: going on long exploratory walks on the tea slopes; examining the wild life in the area (mostly frogs and leeches, if you must know); starting our own Enid Blyton-style Five Find-Outers gang; making friends with the kids in the local village; and generally, having a blast.

In the winters, we headed north to visit more uncles and aunts. It helped, of course, that my uncles were in the army and hence could host us in a different city every three years or so. Thus it was that we sampled the delights of Southern temples, splashed around on the rocky beaches of Visakhapatnam, explored a yet-unspoilt Bhutan, visited endless forts and palaces in Rajasthan and made ourselves at home in army messes all around the country. All of this, leavened with lots of inter-generation bonding, and much re-telling of old family lore.

Even today, when I have traversed every continent in my travels, it is those family holidays that evoke the most heart-felt memories. And it is the family bonds forged on those vacations that provide me with the most emotional sustenance.

So, in case you haven’t booked that mini-break in Bangkok just yet, you might want to examine the possibility of a family vacation. Your kids may balk at it now; but they may well thank you for it in the years to come.

What women want

It really doesn’t take much to make them happy – you just have to know what does

This column is dedicated to all those men who keep complaining that they have no idea when women want. To those men who despair of ever making their wives/girlfriends happy. To whom the mind of a woman is a closed box with No Access written in large red letters on the side. And most of all, to those who get it wrong despite trying their very best to please.

Take it from me, it doesn’t take much to make a woman happy. And contrary to all that guff you read in women’s magazines, it’s not all about oversized bouquets and boxes of expensive chocolate (though sometimes these may be very welcome). A woman’s happiness is tied up in a set of intangibles that vary through every stage in her life. And to know what these are, you need to pay pretty close attention to her.

But if that seems like a huge ask, here are a few pointers to nudge you in the right direction.

• What is the best compliment you can pay your woman when you are out with her? Telling her that she looks like a million bucks? Assuring her that her bum looks terrific in those pair of jeans? Well, yeah okay, that may be one way to go. But you know what they say: talk is cheap. If you really want your woman to feel like a million bucks, stop shooting sidelong glances at the other women who pass by through your peripheral vision. Stop checking out the derrierre of the lady riding the escalator ahead of you. Don’t open doors with a flourish for the babe in a tight mini-skirt. In fact, don’t even clock her existence. Have eyes only for your woman; and see her blossom and shine as she glows with the confidence of someone who knows that she is loved and desired.

• When the woman in your life is telling you about the problems in her life – at the office, with her parents, with the maid – all she wants you to do is listen and act like you care. She doesn’t want to be told that she is “making a mountain out of a molehill”. She has no desire to be asked to “just calm down and relax”. And she certainly doesn’t want you to go into problem-solving mode and tell her what exactly she is doing wrong and how she can resolve the situation. All she wants is that you pay close attention – i.e. switch off the television, get off Twitter, shut the newspaper and put down the volume on the I-pod – acknowledge that she has a genuine problem on her hands, and sympathise with the difficult situation she finds herself in. That’s ALL you need to do. So long as she feels that she is being listened to – rather than just heard – she will feel validated.

• Okay, so you are not the greatest of shoppers, and choosing a birthday/anniversary present for your woman is probably your idea of hell. But no matter how stressful gift-shopping may be, on no account must you delegate this task to your secretary/personal assistant (mostly because the woman in your life will always find out – and then all hell will break loose). This is one job you have to do yourself. If you are not confident about your taste, take the birthday girl along to choose something. But on no account must you buy her anything that you could end up enjoying yourself (so no flat-screen TVs, no Jacuzzi for the bathroom, or even expensive lingerie). The gift must be personal, something so luxurious that she would feel guilty about buying it for herself, and frivolous enough to suggest that you still see her as a fun person rather than a staid mother of two. Most importantly, you must also arrange that she can return the gift if she doesn’t like it and choose something else in its stead. And if she does – don’t look sulky. Just smile and say that this is what you had meant to buy her in the first place – before the salesgirl steered you in the wrong direction.

• When it comes down to it, remember that it is the little things that matter. Greet her with a kiss rather than a demand for a large drink when you arrive home at the end of a long day. The great toilet seat battle has already been waged and lost, but don’t rub salt in her wounds by leaving wet towels/clothes on her pristine new bed linen. Send her a text message in the middle of the day to tell her that you are thinking of her. Take the kids off her hands for a couple of hours on Saturday so that she can enjoy a manicure without them wrecking havoc around her. Be nice to her parents. Rub her feet as she lies in bed, exhausted after looking after a fractious one-year-old. Surprise her occasionally – whether it is with breakfast in bed, a single red rose, a CD that reminds you of the time you went dancing in Goa, or a weekend away without the kids. But most of all, just show her that her happiness matters to you. At the end of the day, that’s all you need to do to keep her happy.

See, I did tell you, it really doesn’t take much.

Off the shelf

How you shop says a lot about who you are

One of my hyper-organised friends has a fool-proof method of scoring the best merchandise at designer sales. She goes to the store a week before the sale begins, tries on all the styles she likes, checks out which size works for her (yes, it can vary wildly from label to label), makes a mental note of the items she wants, and then leaves without buying a thing.

Then, when the sale finally begins, she waltzes into the store – which is now heaving with desperate ladies riffling through the rails – picks up all the items she has shortlisted and walks out with a serene smile on her face. No unseemly wrestling with other contenders on the shop floor for her; no queuing up for ages to access the changing room; no agonising over which size to try on. She knows what she wants, where it is displayed, which sizes work. Needless to say, she ends up with the best bargains ever.

Watching her in action a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly occurred to me that you can tell a great deal about people by the way they shop. Never mind the usual clichés about how retail therapy is the best cure for depression or how unfulfilled rich ladies try to find nirvana in a new pair of shoes, shopping can actually be a great window into human behaviour if only we cared to look.

Think about it. Every single person you know probably has a distinctive shopping style, give or take a few quirks. And nearly always this style mirrors their personality.

Speaking for myself, I have a somewhat militaristic approach to shopping. I only ever go shopping if I need something specific. I have a list of favourite shops which I hit every time. I end up buying much the same type of thing. If I really like something, I buy two of the same, so that if one wears out I have a replacement handy. And I like shopping alone; I can tell what makes my bum look big, thank you very much.

In fact, I find it exquisite torture to shop with other people. All that window-shopping as we walk through a mall; that endless browsing through rails of clothes we have no intention of buying; the sighing over stuff we couldn’t possibly afford; the tedious trying-on of styles that are clearly wrong; the incessant poll-taking (Does this work on me? What do you think?); and then the agonising afterwards when someone or the other inevitably develops buyer’s remorse.

Frankly, I can think of better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon – reading a good book, taking a walk in the park, clearing out my closet, squeezing my blackheads – than this sort of needless drama. But as a way of getting to know people and all their little idiosyncrasies, I can’t think of anything better than a little light shopping.

Based on my observations over many misspent decades, here is my by-no-means-final list of shopping types. Please feel free to add your own.

• The What-If Shopper: This kind of person likes nothing better than a bit of fantasy shopping. So, he trawls the stores checking out anything from expensive cars and the latest gadgets to high-end designer garments and luxury watches. He knows he can’t afford them, but a man can dream, right? What if he made a million bucks one day? What if he found a rich girlfriend? What if he won the lottery? What if...

• The If-Only Shopper: This kind of person treats shopping as an exercise in positive reinforcement and hence shops for the person she would like to be rather than the one she is at the moment. So, she chooses a dress one size too small in the hope that she will fit into it after her latest diet. She stocks up on healthy food to make sure that she sticks to her diet. She buys self-help books to keep herself motivated. She pays through her nose for every miracle cream on the market. She lives in hope that one day she will be her ideal self – and every purchase she makes is imbued with that belief.

• The Oh-Shit Shopper: So named because this shopper always utters the immortal words “Oh shit” the moment he exits the store with his purchases. Because no sooner is his credit card back in his pocket than he knows that he has made a terrible mistake. He should have checked if the next-door store had better merchandise; he is sure he could have got a better deal across town; and those sunglasses were just a ghastly, expensive mistake.

• The Anything-But Shopper: This is the person who heads out to do food shopping but gets side-tracked at the make-up counter. Who decides to buy some curtains for the house but comes home with a plasma television instead. Who goes out to buy a birthday present for a friend, but ends up with a new wardrobe for herself. Yes, that’s right, she ends up buying anything but what she set out for.

• The No-Nonsense Shopper: Yes, he’s the one who goes shopping only when he needs something, frequents only his usual haunts, buys only what he set out for and heads straight back home. (And, of course, sometimes he is a she.)