Open Letter To Indian Retailers, Please Let Me Browse in Peace

Dear Indian retailers,

When I enter your store at 12:30 pm, please understand I did not wander in by accident.

It is a well – thought plan to ditch the crowd  and  browse your “spring-summer” collection in peace. 

I desire empty aisles, vacant trial rooms, no checkout queuing, and above all basic dignity of evaluating how a dress will look on me without someone breathing near my elbow x-raying my vulnerable thoughts.

This people-free atmosphere is important for my retail therapy and it creates the beautiful illusion that the store is mine.

And honestly, is that not what you want me to feel when you say things like “YOUR STYLE YOUR STORE”?

Well then. Let me act like it.

I am here to touch fabrics, hold dresses against myself in the mirror, reject half the rack muttering things underneath my breath.

My phone is silent. My family thinks I am at home resting. Society believes I am unavailable. It is an excellent setup.

But then your sales associates see me.

Aha! They think – “my midday boredom beater. My sales target. My diwali bonus.” 

So I  request you to  train your staff to identify one very important shopper category- the middle-aged Indian woman who has deliberately arrived during non-rush hour because she wants solitude, not support.

This woman doesn’t need assistance. She needs everyone to move away.

She is a survivor-

of  the pandemic, 

of family WhatsApp groups, 

of unsolicited weight management advice, 

and of tons of social expectations.

She has earned the right to stand in front of a rack of plain dresses without being approached every five seconds like her dress choosing backbone is visibly limp.

But no.

The second I enter, someone appears.

“Ma’am, kya chahiye aapko?”

Arre baba, if I knew what I needed in life, would I be standing under such well – lit mirrors, holding three tops and weighing which of these would fill the void in my life?

Of  course, I do not say this. I am still a civilized person. I smile and say, “I’m just browsing.”

And they hear it as an invitation to trail me.

If I pick up one green top, suddenly four more green tops are produced. 

If I drift toward ethnic wear, somebody follows me there with matching sets I did not request, do not need, and do not emotionally have the bandwidth for.

If I pause for two seconds, someone immediately  tries to read my mind.

Sometimes they even tell me which color will suit me, which is a shocking level of confidence from a person who met me nine and a half seconds ago and has no idea what I have already survived in these purples I am so fond of.

And please teach them some empathy.

Nothing humbles a woman faster than a complete stranger looking at her with professional concern and suggesting I should take XL when I have just picked L with absolute confidence. 

I was hoping to spend at least another six minutes believing the L might work if I stood correctly and stayed positive.

And my utter patience is tested in the lingerie section.

Please understand. We come from a generation that treated bras like classified documents. These things were hidden under towels on drying racks. Tiny garments weren’t things to be displayed in 90s India. 

We did not discuss them openly. We did not wave them around. We certainly did not hold them up in broad daylight while a panel of strangers analyzed support, padding, lift, wiring like  they were reviewing quarterly business results.

And yet there I am, trying to preserve my last remaining bit of modesty, while one sales associate says, “Ma’am, yeh aapko comfortable hoga,” with the confidence of a senior orthopedic consultant.

Someone offers color, someone offers sizes, and mind you different brands sales girls in that department want me to buy their brands. So now it is a full-blown tug of war we deal with. 

Once in the bra aisle, a woman looked so determined to educate me about my own chest that I genuinely thought she might bring out a measuring tape and shatter all the confidence I gathered over three decades of knowing my own breasts. 

Dear retailers, this is not customer service.

This is Ajit Doval’s level of planned  ambush.

You seem to believe that if your staff follows us long enough, our purse strings will loosen out of gratitude or exhaustion. 

Let me break it to you.

The more they hover, the less we buy. At some point, irritation wins. Then we leave. And your sales target remains exactly where it was – your ambush fails. 

You have changed the meaning of retail therapy.

Now therapy is what one needs after retail.

All that chasing, coaxing, cornering leaves us with another kind of trauma.

Let me browse in peace. 

Let me buy a top without being stalked.

Let me examine a bra without assembling a committee.

Sometimes the greatest service a customer can receive is to be left alone to reflect and ruminate on her dark thoughts in the brightly illuminated aisles !

That saves her money she would spend on therapy that she might otherwise happily spend on your unransacked racks.

Yours, despite everything,
An irritated Indian woman.