Starved of donuts

We’ve borrowed/copied/learnt so bloody much from Amberica. (Thats what a neighbour aunty calls America. She’s an ardent worshipper of Goddess Amba :)). Accents, movies, two-day weekends, cuss words, tv shows, jennifer aniston hairstyles .. so much. Then why God why can’t a single baker in Bangalore learn to make a decent doughnut from the US or wherever else they make the best doughnuts? Or donut is it? Whatever. I had one today and that had …. hold your breath …. *choke* JEERA…. in the doughnut!! #$@!!@#.

 

DROOOOOLLLL!! Someone get me a napkin NOW.

Clothes at Fabindia

Have been meaning to write a crib post on Fabindia, since ages now. I have been reading quite a bit of Steve Palina’s blog posts recently and I am all determined to get up early, stay focussed at office and stop procrastinating :). God, never imagined I would be actually reading and following self help advice, whatever.

Ya so I am a total sucker for the bright and gorgeous natural cotton clothes from Fabindia. And I guess a lot of young urban women love Fabindia too. They are the perfect place to shop for Indian garments, be it semi-formal kurtas to wear to office, or A-line skirts, new-rage kurtis, pajamas or strappy tops. And then they also have the dupattas to die for and a small but neat collection of cotton and silk sarees. Personally, I love the smart clean cuts in the mostly well designed Fabindia clothes. Sure they are a little expensive, but everybody’s rich these days and not too many people mind shelling out some extra bucks if the clothes makes you look good.

All was fine in my love relationship with Fabindia till one month I just checked my bank account statement and realized that  I had been spending a heavy amount buying clothes from this store almost every month. Not much has changed since then, but I have been looking at alternatives to this for sure. I have shamelessly tried to steal the simple yet chic designs and tried to make the local tailor stitch the exact same thing for me at half the price. But obviously, the local tailors hardly do any justice and your half the price kurta which theoretically has the same design as Fabindia, is practically money gone down the drain. To compete with Fabindia there are other stores too, like Khadder and Anokhi and both of them have good stuff but none of them provide the variety that Fabindia does.

Here are a few things I dislike not just about Fabindia but even about Khadder and Anokhi clothes.

1)First and foremost, colour keeps running from all the dark coloured clothes. All these stores keep saying that its 100% natural fabric and natural dyes and all. But the fact is that it is very inconvenient especially for working women to wash each of their coloured clothes separately. Considering their prices are quite steep, is a basic colour fix asking for too much? Also I really wonder that now with these stores going global and all, will say a customer from the US accept a garment with running colours? I am not totally sure, but I have never seen any clothes from the US, lose their colour.

2)The clothes fade real fast and when I mean fast I mean like 10 washes. Three months at the most and that lovely kurta starts looking old and worn out. You have to keep replenishing your wardrobe frequently. Is this some sort of a smart-ass business strategy that these guys are trying to use?

3)Keeping the average age of the clothes in mind, I think they are quite over-priced. A Kurta (785) + A Bottom (320) + Dupatta (450). A full dress can cost you about 1500 bucks easily and not to forget that you’ll probably give it away after a couple of months. Buy a trouser and a top with about the same money and it stays much
longer. You might not look that pretty though. 🙂

Hmm.. I’m happy that I’ve let it all out. Actually not too many people seem to mind these things. Coz just look at the way Fabindia is growing, just blink and they have a new store, blink once more and they have a store right next to your house. Really, there’s one next to mine now! 🙂

Yeh Green rang kab mujhe chodega

Clearly if one is walking past Fabindia, one has to at least pay a quick 15 minute visit to the little heaven and take in a few breaths of fresh fabric smell at least, if not buy half the stuff in their shop. Even if one has decided a month ago not to get seduced by their stuff so often. So, while S was being nice and was pretending to look at their decor and browse organic food products section, I quickly browsed through the stacks of kurtas and short kurtas and shirts and picked two absolutely lovely pieces within 10 minutes.

I was feeling quite a sense of achievement at the really cute tops I had selected real quick and then out of nowhere I realized that both of them were shades of green. Clearly one of the two had to go. The thin light green khadi kurta was too good to be eliminated and the dark green kurti always looks good and had to stay. Meanwhile, that nagging reminder of using my brains when in Fabindia premises resurfaced and I started mentally taking a look at my wardrobe. Whoa! I own some 6 odd green stoles, dupattas and 3 green tops already! There was no question now of adding any more green to my wardrobe now and most importantly till that moment, I thought my favourite colour was Orange and Blue came close next. What was worse is that I do not own a single decent piece of Orange outfit anymore! Now if I think about it, before the whole Green revolution thing, a Purple revolution also happened somewhere in between.

Anyway, this is what Dolly Ahluwalia who designed the costumes for Omkara had to say about why she used greens for Langda Tyagi’s costumes.

“I thought of him as a lizard, and Vishal agreed with me. In fact, he’s like an eel, like a cunning and slippery character. He’s envious, and that’s why he wears a lot of greens. “

Ha! I hate all these psychological interpretations of colours and dreams and sunsigns and the likes, specially when then work against me. :). Even though I dont believe in this interpretation crap, I genuinely hope that this whole colour affinity change has nothing to do with the fact that the older I grow the less easier it has become for me to feel truly happy at other people’s achievements and happiness.