Name: Zainab Sulaiman
Place: Bangalore
Malls, huge department stores and hypermarkets are slowly becoming the preferred shopping destinations for most people today. For me however, there is nothing to touch the old fashioned shopping experience of walking down a city’s high street or busting bazaar, haggling with local vendors, and biting into a hot samosa, roasted ‘bhutta’ or any of the myriad street foods you see everywhere. Here then is a list of the markets I love.
1. Lajpat Nagar – Delhi. For its huge range of clothes, shoes, accessories and aggressive shopkeepers! Rip-offs of famous designers are available in huge stores (unabashedly inspired by Bollywood), and if you have enough time to conduct a thorough search, you can find ‘designer’ clothing at quarter the price. No one at your next kitty party will ever guess where that Sabyasachi came from!
2. Linking Road – Mumbai. Rows of makeshift stores line the road on both sides, where an hotch potch of products – from nighties and handbags, to luggage and children’s garments – are packed tight into every nook and corner available. Mannequins dressed in the latest fashions gently sway in the breeze, as they hang at the entrance of shops to save space in land strapped
Mumbai. Famous for it’s footwear, one cannot leave without buying a few pairs of ridiculously cheap (and trendy) sandals from the roadside shoe stalls.
3. Bangalore – Tonnes of cheap shopping – clothes, junk jewellery, footwear; is complemented with the presence of value for money brands like Westside and Maxx, making this a one stop shop for anyone visiting Bangalore. It’s poorer cousin Ibrahim Sahib Street which runs parallel, has shops selling fabric at almost wholesale prices and is the place to find a friendly tailor to stitch that last minute saree blouse.
4. Charminar – Hyderabad. Offers an unbeatable combination of shopping and sight seeing. Tiny silver shops boast of being in business over the last 100 years, and can offer great bargains on silver jewellery and knickknacks. Shiny bales of fabric accost you from all corners and the by-lanes give you a peek into another world, where you can marvel at sheets of beaten silver (varaq) traditionally used to decorate fruit and mithai for weddings and ceremonies. Lad Bazaar, a one of a kind market dedicated to bangles, shimmers and glitters and tempts you with rows upon rows of gorgeous glass bangles which make great presents for friends and family back home.
5. Fashion Street, Egmore – Chennai. Salwar kameez sets, a variety of printed and colourful fabric perfect for mixing and matching, curtains, tablecloths and the like, can all be bought at bargain prices. A favourite of the college going crowd for cheap t-shirts, readymade tops and nightwear, it’s perfect for a ‘quickie’ afternoon of shopping.
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