It has to occur atleast once every week, that ritual trip to the local grocery store where you find yourself  blinking under the fluorescent lights, thousands of products seducing you into owning them.  Your head can feel a little giddy as you move around like a headless chicken. A mere shopping expedition becomes an ordeal, a boring exercise and a terrible brain teaser.

This wasn’t particularly true for my neighbor she shopped with an adroitness that made her famous in the neighborhood.  It was her munificent nature that made everyone within the 2 miles radius know of the very friendly Mrs Cowan.  A traditional Brit, terribly polite in her ways and extremely proud of her baking and culinary skills, she was my obvious choice for help and wisdom when it came to matters of hearth. Hence during one of my casual chats, I asked her if she would like to accompany me for my next grocery shopping?  She gladly accepted the invitation secretly I think she knew of my midweek sprints to the supermarket.

My list read Milk, Bread, Eggs, Ketchup, fruits, vegetables, and cholesterol free oil. Most of the items did make it to my list every week while some preferred to stick their head out once a month but many never made it to the list and annoyingly made random appearances in my mind during the week. She sat me down over a cuppa and asked me to take charge of my kitchen and pull out the skeletons from the cupboards. She said, ‘being in control of the kitchen will improve my efficiency at work’. For some strange reason, I found myself nodding in affirmation.

So, there it was a cold February, Saturday afternoon, armed with carry bags, lists and the money two ‘women in black’ set off for the local supermarket The super market was crowded with people, children and easter eggs in different flavors and colors. She took out her list and I quickly glanced through it, it had neatly written down items in exactly the same order as they lay displayed on the aisles eg:  Aisle I shelf 1 has milk and that was the first item on hers and sixth on mine. She called it the navigation friendly shopping which saves time and avoids backtracking.  I picked up a large can of milk but suddenly 2 more cans were dropped into the cart.  I turned around and said, ‘I don’t need so much milk Mrs Cowan?’ She promptly replied,  today they are giving 3 cans for the price of 2, you could make custard or just freeze it and next week don’t buy milk’. Alright so now I have to celebrate a mad cow week and drink only milk!

Next came the eggs, fruits and veggies, she announced that I should only buy organic.  She chose to ignore my opinion on the subject and declared that ‘Organic is healthy even if it is little more expensive’! Oh yes, I whispered, only that 20% extra every week on the grocery bills merely translates into my retirement plans being delayed by couple of years.

As organic now forced its way into my vernacular, the dependence on brands was being forced out. Apart from the best of fruits and vegetables, my cart now had a large loaf of lesser known brand of bread only because it had 3 extra slices, and a bottle of some cleaning liquid which came with a free pair of washing gloves. She disclosed her secret that most often you can buy two things for the price of one only if you know of your short term and long term needs.  Oh dear! Mrs Cowan I said with a loud chuckle, that is a suggestive topic on a cold afternoon.’ The giggle lasted for couple of minutes but the message rang a loud bell in my mind as my mind started scanning the cupboards of my house and the flash images started emerging- the half empty bottle of shampoo in the bathroom, the drained out battery cells in the remote etc.  These items were fast being thrown into my cart only if they came for a bargain. She said, ‘Put on your sale blinkers and do not let the advertisers win’. ‘They are like hot men, you can flirt with them but not necessarily that you have to end up in bed with them’.  This was like a repeat episode of ‘Sex and City’ and I was loving it.

When the training was nearing its last leg and I was looking forward to a hot bath, it was at that very moment, I was informed that fresh meat in a competing super market brand provided better quality and at a lower price and that our shopping trek should continue for another 30 minutes. The regular 30 minutes shopping spree was fast becoming a 2 hour marathon.

She elegantly moved between the aisles like some supermarket queen and I lumbered alongside her pushing the overloaded cart which was fast gaining the pounds and my wallet the spare change. For 60 minutes, every shelf, every aisle was meticulously examined and all the offers minutely evaluated. I was warned to always look at the expiry date and the list of the ingredients carefully, I wondered if horsemeat would still appear in any language on any label.  Once in a while, she would abruptly stop me in my tracks and pull out some coupons and vouchers and validate the free entitlements. There was a mix and match of many considerations before any product proudly gained a place in my cart.

Finally, when all the privileged items made their permanent place in my trolley we headed for the checkout. She gave her final seal of approval to the products as she laid them out on the conveyor belt along with her armoury of coupons, vouchers, loyalty cards etc. It was time to pull out the money and it came as no surprise to me that I had overshot my budget by a small percentage.  The rise in the cost was more than compensated by the smart purchases we had made. I had bought a total of 40 items against the original list of 28 items, this was a quite a bargain and in the process I had just saved myself a couple of mid-week panic attacks.

Completely embarrassed, that I had disgraced the women community because I was officially declared a green horn when it came to shopping!  I quietly drove back home reminiscing my growing years in Kolkata.  Like any growing middle class teenager, I was introduced to the art of shopping and saving by my mother.  I vividly remembered how I ridiculed and mocked her extraordinary skills of homemaking. I recollected the regular instances when a new brand of toothpaste replaced Colgate only because that month some hair oil came free with it or when mother bargained for green chillies to be added free with a sack of potatoes under the hot summer sun or when she walked from one seller to the other looking for the best value for onions and brinjals and her insistence to buy pulses from a certain ‘Narayana Stores’ only because it promised her quality, hefty loyalty discounts, a red carpet welcome, delicious sweets, a cup of tea, a free home delivery and lots of chatter and cheer. She would always say that the journey from a ladette to a lady begins when she learns to pick the right ripe mangoes.

As I parked my car into the driveway, the sun was shining and I could sense the onset of spring. There was an uncanny sense of accomplishment, one that I had never experienced before. As an integral part of the new generation, I may still prefer to touch and smell the coriander leaves before I buy them but unlike me there are scores of urban dwellers who prefer shopping online for everything from onions to air tickets.  India’s online retail market is valued at Rs. 2,000 crore and projected to rise to Rs. 7,000 crore by 2015, according to Assocham. The Internet and Mobile Association of India has listed an estimated 110 million Internet users, growing at 13% overall year-on-year.  But it is not about our mothers shopping in a local baazar or Mrs Cowan spending hours scanning the corridors of the supermarket or a new generation parent evaluating her preferences online, it is about mastering the sensibilities of good shopping, the ability to make smart choices as effectively as the ones in the boardroom. As someone rightly said ‘When an honest middle class working individual puts his hands in his pocket it better be for a good reason.’