Toastmaster Project 5: Body Speaks - What happens in a mall ?

Have you been to a mall recently? Did you notice that there are far fewer places to park yourself than to park your car? Yes, places to sit in the common areas of malls are so hard to find. After all, people are not shopping when they're sitting. So they make us walk around like a rat in a lab experiment. Malls are so manipulative.

Talking about parking in a mall, the underground parking lots are more like the locations of climax scene of an action movie. You park your vehicle, and then enter the mall. Once you enter the mall, you’ll probably see the mall map. An average mall customer spends 29 seconds looking at a mall map, and often leaves the map baffled. Haven't you done that? If not, you are not an average customer. By the way, that statistic was a made up one.

Now come to the floor plan of a mall, though the floors are fitted with marbles and tiles, they are convoluted like a tied up python. That's for a reason, -‘the shoppers can't make a quick exit with such an elaborate design. They’ll end up buying something or the other somewhere.’ Malls are not only manipulative, they are mean as well. Once, I lost my way in such a mall and I had to pay double the charge of petrol as parking price. I decided, no more malls, and no more evil expenses. I came back the next weekend, this time on a friend’s bike.

Now that we have seen the map, let’s walk around the mall. You can see high ceilings, colourful lightnings, bright boards, and finally you can’t miss the handsome and beautiful models sticking their neck out from the walls of the mall. If you walk around a mall, you may not find a place to sit, but you are bound to find an escalator that takes you up and down. What’s so special about escalators? They are placed strategically to force shoppers to pass the maximum number of storefronts. For this reason, I keep my eyes closed when I'm on an escalator in a mall. They can’t make me buy a thing without my willingness. I urge you to do the same.

Men are more interested in people watching at malls, whereas women are more interested in shopping at malls. Men like window shopping and corridor watching, not very expensive, whereas women like to shop inside the windows, and stay away from corridors. To sum it up, men go to malls for watching, and women go to malls for shopping, at times for consumer goods, and at times for new girlfriends or boyfriends. After all, the malls are places where you can shop for anything.

But what’s the one thing that you can’t buy in a mall? The other day, I went to a mall with my town grown uncle, he straightaway went inside a big shop and said,”I’ll take this for 800,” the shop manager smiled and pulled out the tag, “It’s 1500 sir, ” My uncle replied, “I know how to read, I asked it for 800” The manager calmly rolled the shirt and said, “Sorry sir, we don’t bargain here.” My uncle walked out of the shop furiously, he couldn't bargain with shopkeeper, but he was barking at me. We Indian’s are fond of bargaining, so fond that we don’t mind paying a higher price as long as they allow us to bargain. We miss that satisfaction of getting our own price. How I wish someone would allow me to bargain in a mall. Just for the fun of it.

Some of us may like it, and some of us may not like it, we cannot avoid going to malls. I like the feeling of being in the mall, but buying, I might as well go somewhere else. Things might be different in the times to come. In future, you may have to go to a mall even for groceries. The mean , manipulative and massive malls are here to stay.

See you at the mall...