The stationary store woman

 The urge to buy something comes in the form of an acute diarrhea. You have to make a purchase or you spoil your mood for the rest of the day. Not to reveal the intimate details but the foul mood infects your fellow sufferers. I suffer from this form of diarrhea once in every two days. With controlled efforts, the bout may be prolonged to every third or fifth day but if then not intervened, the mess is visible to public eye.

In the times of insurgency, the local stationary store comes to my rescue. Every commercial complex or for that matter even residential complex houses a stationary store. They are like the potholes encountered after every few meters. They are innumerable yet indispensable. Every galli, nukad or mohalla boosts of a stationary store replicate with everything from pens to pins and books to boards. The brands of objects vary from the richness of the locality but certain products bind the rages to the riches. They are the Karl Marx of Indian society uniting the slumdogs with the millionaires. 

To satisfy my shopping cravings, I enter a stationary store. I splurge on the Lexi, Reynolds, and on occasions my wallet is a little rebellious, I buy some Apsara and Natraj. Buying is the most painful part as it would mean departing with little from an enormous mass. The actual joy lies in getting the blue, pink, magenta coloured stationary off the shelves. Then scribbling incoherent nothings on a blank page,  creating a riot of colours. Trying the various hued pens and markers, is similar to trying outfits in a changing room. What will look good on me and what will look good on my page both are of utmost importance to an image conscious organism like me. I am judged by my attire and ink. What I think reflects in what I wear and I write. So, prevention being better than cure, I have to select my thoughts, pants and pens very diligently.

One of my favorite stationary shops is the one right below my housing cubbyhole. A lady and a man (not necessarily her man) govern the counters. They do not own the shop and it reflects in their attitude in selling. They are here paying rents and taking pains to do so by painstakingly helping me get the best from hordes of boxes. The cardboard boxes look at me with longing eyes. They want me to take away the luggage weighing them down. Everyday I buy a ball or a ballpoint and on occasions something as trivial as a pack of rubber bands or chalks. I do nothing with them, merely add to the hundreds of its other siblings lying unattended in my drawers. 

The cardboard boxes tell me the woman has loans to pay. Also, the man is here brother whom she is pulling out from wells of addiction. The boxes must have heard them talk or I have been eavesdropping on the other women of the complex. Whatever or wherever I heard it, it's definitely not the shopkeeper's mouth that spoke.

When I laze around with my coffee mug, the woman scurries across the main road and opens the shop at eight in the morning. She is the single army of cleaner, sweeper, manager to her livelihood. Children who have last minute update on the school project gather at the shop. Like a health consultant, she guides them with what is exactly needed by different schools on different occasions. Satisfied with their purchase, the children happily board the rattling school bus. Next in tow are the mothers who want some pins to pin together their scattered life. With this woman they share the morning madness that has just ended only to begin fresh in the afternoon. 

At around 12noon the brother's majestic shadows are seen looming over the short staircase that leads to the store. That is the time, the woman catches some breath. I marvel at her efficiency and efforts at running a stationary shop amidst the discounts and sales of Dmart and Big Bazar. Like her, there maybe many who are battling it out in the big market. Fighting it out like a wrestler on soft mud. Sometimes the mud is a slurry of struggles. Emerging only to be pulled back again. Sinking to the bottom with an outstretched hand signaling for rescue. Yet, the other hand acting like oars carries the perturbed body to the surface. All to save a precious life! 

My stationary lady, too, is swimming across the big, giant river of branded commodities. Her meek, wooden boat has nothing to offer against the fishing trawlers that throw baits of discount and trap the consumer fish. The stationary I buy from her are baits to trap her in a conversation, to get her melancholy washed out. But she refrains to pull down the perennial smile. 

"Anything more? How about some mint chewing gum for a refreshing conversation?" She loads the teeny-meeny goodies on top of my other meager purchases.  

I look into her eyes and see the ambition to rise above her stray struggles. I realize it's not about buying but it's about helping her aim high. When I buy a few essentials her hopes are soared that some more customers will escalate her sales.

How about dropping in a stationary shop soon?

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