Our "Unmentionables"

Have you ever bought a bra in a small town in India while you were a teenager? If not, you might not be interested in reading on. I realize of course that the segment of my handful of readers that have not bought a bra ever at all will most likely be the ones who will read on. But that's okay.

So it was always a male salesperson at the store. He would be in this little shower stall kind of cube with everything hidden away in little cardboard boxes either over his head or below in some secret compartments. Only a couple of bras would be on display. These would usually be in locked glass cases and they almost always had little pink roses placed at strategic positions. The matching undies would be there too; hoisted at all sorts of angles. "Feelings", “New Look”, "Peter Pan" and names like that would be splattered all over the walls with close-up shots of women's faces and eyes. Well, the general set-up would be such that you could not try out anything you wanted, you could not walk up and pick up something you wanted, and no, you could not even point it out. So you had to tell this cheesy looking guy what you wanted and horror-of-horrors in what size you wanted it!!!! Luckily you almost always went with your Mom and she would start off the conversation with "Andar ka dekhao bhayya" (Loosely translates to - Show us the inside stuff brother) and then move on to make and size. So you almost always were spared the agony of topping your existing adolescent pains by size specifications. There was always the chance that the guy disagreed with what you said. Yes, you read that right - they have suggestions for you too. My friend (we'll call her Arima) was built small in general. She stood 4'9" in her stockinged feet and was always considered the kid, which meant she could get away with a whole lot of things by acting the baby. The disadvantage was, as she was petite and almost always in a loose tee and jeans; people thought she was err...small; while in reality, she wasn't. So imagine her plight when cheesy-guy-behind-counter refused to give her the chosen size. He giggled while telling her so too; which just got her even angrier. He should have just given her what she asked for...I will consent to the fact that as a salesman he might be allowed to give advise and maybe he had built some expertise in this area with years of disappearing behind counters fishing out hundreds of samples for women of all sizes and shapes.... but he couldn't really have passed a sound judgment here, the counter was just not the right height to allow for such a sound judgment. O well, Arima took to getting her Mom to buy her stuff for her too. Cheesy guy thought the Mom was shopping for her own needs and never argued the case again.

So welcome to the United States and its wonderful mall culture. Stroll around, figure it all out, take your time...nobody is watching or waiting. Try it out, try it all out, buy it and you still have some time to change your mind. Relief, joy and sheer thankfulness....I remember muttering “I love you America” the first time I strolled around between those rows of hundreds of hangers. Of course, things have changed dramatically in India now and even the small town malls are pretty nice, while the bigger cities have amazing places to shop at - as I find out with each visit back home. The situation has it’s own set of problems though as most salespeople work on commission at these shopping centers, so once the escalator hits the bra-floor there will be 6 women walking as fast as possible towards you and you still have some announcements to make and some watching and waiting you are subjected to; but hey, we have come a long way so I reckon we’ll end up in a good place, it'll just take some time. I love doing my shopping in India for most things but you have to understand why the unmentionables are still bought only here in the US; the small-town girl hasn’t quite recovered from the pre-feminist-bra-salesman-burning-revolution times when buying a bra wasn’t an eagerly awaited experience...unlike trying on the new Ipex now (2 years of research and development, 10 designers and 1 patent pending!!! LOL!).