A sub-category called “Home Stores” has been booming all over the city; quite a few of them are expensive beyond means (mine at least), and others, try to cater to the average wallet. Still it was a slog to locate curtain material and a darzi to set them up in the minimalistic style I wanted. Minimalist and window curtains, I was to learn, just don’t go together.
And so where did my journey begin and end? I’m narrating this today, especially for the benefit of males, who might be compelled to do their own house-wear shopping. Believe me it’s tough, raising my respect by a hundred bars for the housemakers, who achieve this effortlessly. Anyway, so my trek began at the good ole Chunilal Mulchand outlet opposite Regal cinema. The cottons, silks and blends here are in abundant stock, except for the plain rust fabric I finally picked after an hour of fretting and fussing. The salesguys remained patient.
There I’d found it, only to be informed that I would have to wait for over a month to get the number of metres I needed. Plus, there would be a “black-out” underlining, which I would need to plunge my room in darkness. Er…okay...then came the news that this under-fabric would be as costly as the main curtain material. Stymied, I next checked out Crawford Market’s A to Z, which has so many shoppers that you might have to streak to get noticed. Didn’t get into that.
Next stop: A furnishing store at Kemp’s Corner where the up-at-heel shop. Found the fabric I needed. Again, not enough in store. A kind junior employee, suggested that I venture into the wholesale market, at Mohammed Ali Road. Did that, only to discover swathes and swathes of raw silks and polyesters, which were more jhagmag than the curtains you might remember from Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodha Akbar. Again, I would have to place an order…and wait for a month. Or two.
You might wonder what kind of conditions I’ve been living in. Why the sudden obsession for new curtains? No answer, except that a newly-turned singleton might want a change. The change hasn’t been accomplished, but in the process I’ve become a “home store” specialist. For value for money, the Bombay Store on Pherozeshah Mehta Road offers the best cushions. The ones I can’t tolerate anymore are those cushion covers with Bollywood faces. I know they’re legends, but I don’t get a kick out of lounging on the faces of Madhubala and Dilip Kumar from Mughal-e-Azam, or Nargis looking tormented in Mother India. Enough of those “masterpiece” covers please.
For rugs I’ve been perusing the piles at Fabindia and Anokhi. The exercise is like book-hunting, you may just stumble on one, which you’ll feel great with for a lifetime. And bed covers and razais? All stores are packed with them…but, but…I can’t figure out why they are more than 500 per cent the price than those you can walk away with in the Jaipur and Bikaner bazaars. Something tells me, I might find those elusive curtains, too, in Rajasthan.
Conclusion: Truly wish someone would write a reader-friendly book on where to shop for home essentials. Don’t look at me though, I wouldn’t get past the chapter on curtains.