Malls

Lucknow is a city of about four million and has four malls. I know of at least one more that is under construction. Usually in Canada you go to a mall for the cheaper products. It’s cheaper to eat in the food court than in a restaurant, it’s cheaper to buy clothing at Wal-Mart than in some independent boutique. There are exceptions, but generally if you want shopping to be convenient and cheap you go to the mall rather than wandering around the town.

In India it is the opposite. One burger at the McDonalds in the mall costs fifty-five rupees. In a decent restaurant in the centre of downtown I can by a whole meal for thirty rupees. If I buy at the stalls I could probably eat for ten rupees a meal.

So the food in malls is not cheap, it’s more expensive. The same is true for the clothing. And malls rarely have anything but clothing. In India if you want you can go shop for the fabric you want, then go to a tailor, tell them how you want the neckline, the sleeves, the fit etc. and in two days they’ll give you a hand-tailored outfit. And this is way cheaper than buying clothing in most of the malls. But malls are trendy. It’s a status thing. Only the rich and hip can afford to hang out at the malls, so to the malls they go.

The malls do have a few Wal-Mart type stores. The one we usually use is called Big Bazaar and it sells food, clothing, kitchenware, furniture and toys. These are pretty good for bulk purchases, and its where we do a lot of our food shopping. A while ago we went to Big Bazaar to buy a garbage can for the office and the sales clerk told us that if we never used the garbage can, it would last for two hundred years, guaranteed!