Walking down the aisle

Have you ever experienced little pockets of absolute bliss, out of the blue? It happened to me. Against a brilliant orange sky during sunset, my partner and I were driving to the grocery store on a Friday evening.

The sun rays journeyed towards him on the driver’s seat and set his eyes ablaze. His eyelashes welcomed each ray of light and allowed them to nestle on the eyelids. How delicately, each eye lash fluttered in the wind like butterflies in a garden.

Whoever said that you need to visit a scenic location to experience beauty? I often catch glimpses of bliss in everyday life – moments too beautiful to be added to the list of the seven wonders of the world.

Upon reaching the grocery store, two little girls wearing matching red frocks were wonderstruck - they were gazing at an aisle full of chocolates. One of them excitedly picked a chocolate bar and said, “We will share this!” to her little sister. They ran toward their parents and snuck the chocolate bar in the shopping cart, through the mesh. Their mother caught them doing so, but pretended to look away and shared a little smirk with her husband. Little pockets of bliss.

Further down another aisle, three friends were in the midst of a crucial debate. “Should we cook biryani or pick ingredients to make pizza from scratch?” Two of them voted for biryani. The third one added, “Post-biryani coma is dangerous. We need to finish our assignments by tonight!” They chuckled in agreement and began picking ingredients for the latter. They were probably oblivious to the amount of effort kneaded to make pizzas from scratch. Pun intended.

Before you suspect that my agenda for the day was only to eavesdrop at grocery store conversations (although I absolutely don’t mind it), let me mention that my partner and I were picking ingredients to cook a full-blown South-Indian meal that night. Since team work makes the dream work, we decided to split the ingredients’ list and shop quickly. He was at the vegetables section as I proceeded toward the rice and pulses aisle.

“The best way to cook rice is to drizzle some oil in the pressure cooker before you steam it altogether. That way, the grains will never stick to each other!” I heard this million-dollar advice being given by a middle-aged woman to someone who looked like her daughter or daughter-in-law (I’ll let you choose). In response, she exclaimed, “Wow! I will try that. Sometimes, I even add a few drops of lemon so that the rice is white and bright.” Now, I had just overheard some mind-blowing cooking hacks that I was already excited to try. Who would have known, right?

After adding sambar powder, Basmati rice and a few other pulses to my cart, I pranced toward the dazzling aisle of beauty products. Within seconds, a wave of desires washed over me. I yearned to purchase a new facewash, more shower gels and body mists even though I already had some at home.

That’s what grocery stores do to you, right? The way each product is displayed and the myriad of options make you want to purchase them all. Before adding another non-urgent product into my cart, I checked my list. After re-reading a sentence that I had penned at the bottom of the list myself – “Is it a necessity or a luxury?” – I kept the extra body mists back into the aisle. This was adulting 101. But nothing haunts us like the things we didn’t buy.

My partner returned with all the veggies required and peaked into my shopping cart. “Strawberry and cream shower gel. Really? I cannot use that!” We burst into laughter. He went back to the aisle and picked a new shower gel and a number of other products. “Hey! You didn’t stick to this list!”, I said. What he said next made me want to go back and restock on those products that I had returned - “A little luxury never hurt anyone right?”

You guessed it, I picked those body mists too. Contented, we proceeded to the billing area. While driving back home, his eyes were still glistening as the streetlights reflected against them. Our hearts were as full as the number of grocery bags in the car’s boot. “Shall we just order pizza tonight and watch a movie?”, he asked. “I was just about to say that, my legs hurt after walking around at the grocery store!”

In any case, my plan for the next day was to surprise my partner with sambar and the most delicious rice in the world. You now know the best hack for it too, don’t you?

Hansika Korivi works in Corporate Communications in Dubai