DVD hunt

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Your pieces are well written. Perhaps you could focus on lesser known aspects of day-to-day life and cross-cultural living. A good writer tries to offer the unexpected fare.
- Dr. Sachidananda Mohanty, Professor, Dept. of English, University of Hyderabad, India [Dr. Mohanty is a recipient of the Katha Award from the President of India for "Translation and the formation of regional Literatures/Culture" by investigating some Oriya-language translations.]

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"Today I have to get a movie DVD," I told myself.
Standing there in the middle of the market I felt a little lost. The market was an array of shops; each with a different exterior, but inside each was selling only one thing: Clothes.

The place was jostling with people of all shapes and sizes. There were the heavy-weights, who were single-handedly blocking both the entrance doors of the 2-door shop; and then there were the light-weights who were also practically doing the same thing, but as team work. The tall ones were getting an aerial view of the sea of heads surrounding them; while the shorter ones were trying to sneak their way through the (virtual) empty spaces betwen 2 people.

"Then where do I look for what I am looking for?" I asked myself hastily with a confused look around.

I had already been to the other market a couple of times last month. Each time my mind (and possibly heart too!) would zero-in on a movie; somehow, my hand wouldn't pick it up. Though the DVD collection in those shops was good, I guess I wanted a change; having already purchased a bunch of action and suspense genre DVD's from there in the past.

"Look closer," I forced myself.
Large markets always had narrow lanes running at right-angles to the central main lane, where locals would set-up small makeshift shops and practically sell all sorts of stuff at very low prices (being able to save on the huge shop rental fees at popular locations). And for that matter, you could get a quick haircut right in the middle of a vegetable market!

"There it is," I spotted a lane hiding by the side of a 3-storey shop specializing in female garments (both over- and under-). I felt excited.

However, my excitement was short-lived.
To my disappointment, the narrow lane did not only have a deserted look (for most of the shops were closed); but also, it looked more like a parking lot wih vehicles jumbled all over the place.

I came out.
The rumblings in my stomach reminded me that lunch time was approaching so I needed to hurry.

A couple more lanes passed me.
Ladies were still frantically shopping; or at least, pretending to. Stomach definitely takes a back seat when the mind is busy counting the number of large posters proclaiming "On Sale". The feminine gender, anyways, has small amounts of both.

Finally, I spotted an old TV repair shop at the far end with an old soul sitting at the counter. I decided to take her advise. She directly me to an alley that actually ran parallel to the current main lane.

I felt intrigued.
And this time, it actually materialized.
The alley was neatly hidden behind a deluge of bright n colorful female apparels, currently overflowing out of the original shop in the front.

and there they were, a whole group of small video shops scattered on both sides of the road. I entered one that seemed to have a good collection on comedy.

I took my time browsing through the big list of DVDs, and finally decided on a couple to buy. Noticing that I would be buying more than one; the shop owner, to my great delight gave me an additional discount!

I dropped the DVDs in my bag and hurried home for lunch n some fun.


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