Shopping in Chennai!!

I have been wanting to write about shopping in Chennai for a long time but never really found the time. Last year when I was in India I happened to a lot of shopping before and after my marriage. Normally, I like to buy most of my clothes and accessories here in the USA but then this time my husband insisted that he take me out to some of the malls in chennai and see if I like something.

Most of the shopping that was done prior to the marriage was for stuff that I had to wear during the ceremony itself. I had a tough time when I was trying to pick a silk saree for my engagement as there were too many people trying to convince me to get what they liked. So, this time I took my parents alone and it made a real difference as I really could pick anything that I wanted. It was a lot of fun to actually go shopping for silk sarees. I went to different stores and found lots of varieties in different price ranges...even though it was a saree that I would wear for my wedding I didn't want to spend too much on it considering the fact that I won't be wearing them that frequently. I finally ended up picking two sarees around Rs.7,000 each from Kumaran silks and chennai silks. Pothy's was really terrible for my taste!!! And the sarees from some of the other stores looked too modern!!! (apparently thats the trend). Silk saree shopping wasn't over with that, I still had a 9 yards saree that I had to get and I ended up getting that at Nalli for about Rs. 12,000. My husband and I picked the 9 yards saree together :). There were sarees that were upto Rs. 30K - 40K but I stuck to moderate range as I won't be wearing these sarees frequently.

After all the silk saree purchase, I then had to buy mysore silk, I should confess that on any day I would prefer mysore silk over silk. As its a lot easier to wear and manage :). There was a specific brand called girija silks that my mother-in-law suggested that I get. I found good mysore silk sarees in Kumaran, Nalli and another store in Mount Rd (I forgot the store name).

My mom saved me some time by getting a few silk sarees ahead of time and since I happened to like them, things just got a lot more easier. Since, everyone told me that my sarees looked great I'm gonna assume that my mom and I did a great job in selecting them. I had to buy some churidars as well and I picked them out from some stores in T.Nagar (It's very important to have good casual clothes when you get married, cos my aunt still tells me how her DIL didnt have any good clothes to wear). I wore new clothes almost every other day :) :). In addition I did some salwar material shopping as well and by far I liked Chennai silks the most.

Now comes the fun part, shopping after marriage. My husband did tell me that I could get brand named apparel in India for a lot less than what I pay here in USA. Even before we got married my MIL did some searching to find out where I can get Ralph Lauren jeans and apparently you can only find them in Delhi. So, jeans was ruled out right there. Now the shopping was more for tops, footwear, etc...

Before going to India, some of my friends recommended that I go to Fab India for buying salwars and kurtis. But I didn't have any time to visit that place before marriage. But, luckily my MIL who was also keen on taking me for shopping had seen their ad on newspaper and showed it to me and asked if I was interested. I was excited and we all went shopping together. My MIL picked up salwar for herself and that one was very good. I got kurti tops and I really love to wear them here and a lot of ladies at work tell me they look very good. They even sell Men's shirts there and my hubby and FIL got them and they told me that they liked the stuff there. I thought Fab India was cool, because they had so much stuff and none of the tops shrunk that badly or faded. If you have the patience to go through their collection you can easily find a lot of tops in Rs. 300- 400 range. That's a pretty good price for good quality cotton tops.

When it came to Tshirt shopping, I totally liked shopper's stop and there the T-shirt variety was good and price ranged from Rs.300-400, sometimes even lesser. I think we should buy a larger size than our correct size as most of these tops ended up shrinking. Nevertheless some of them were good and again I got compliments.

I didn't like lifestyle (store at the city center) that much the first time I went there, I didn't like the clothes there at all, and I really wanted to get out of the store asap but my hubby convinced me to take a look at the sandals, which I did so that he wouldn't be disappointed. I bought one sandal and I totally loved it once I started using it. These sandals were exactly the way I wanted them, moderate heels and very light weight. I think I got a few pairs of sandals there.

In addition there was some fashion jewellery shopping that I did, I got some sets done at Narayana Pearls but most of these look more or less traditional. If you really want some fashion jewellery then you have to shop elsewhere. I found good stuff at Landmark (that was the only piece of fashion jewellery I got). But my husband's aunt had gotten me stuff from a store called Damini in Kotturpuram and we later went there to check that store out and found out that the stuff there is in high demand and that they sell out very fast once the new stock arrives!!! Other than there was a diamond pendant gifted to me and I found out that it was bought at Lifestyle. I never really got time to look around for similar stuff in Lifestyle store.

Thanks to my loving husband who had enough patience to drive me around town and get me all this stuff ;). Next time I go to India, I really know what's good there and what stuff should be got there and what stuff I should get here in USA!!! If you do have the time, then do checkout these stores. Happy shopping!!

Marriage

I read this artcile "Sooner Vs. Later: Is there an ideal age for first marriage", it was quite interesting to see how people prefer to get married later as opposed to getting married in their teens or in their 20s. This article talks about Americans and at what age do they prefer to get married.

During the course of reading this article I was reminded of my dinner with my husband at Amici's in Mountain View, CA. We both love the place and have gone there before our marriage. Last friday we happened to be there and it was quite amazing that both of us told the other person how free we felt despite getting married. I was delighted to know that the feeling was mutual.

I come from India and I know that people there give a lot more importance to marriage. It's not very uncommon to see girls getting married when they are still in college. Not only that a lot of the marriages tend to be arranged marriages as well. Essentially you get married at an early age and start living with a stranger and then try to get to know him and his family. To be honest, I personally feel that it's a bit too much to take when you are in your late teens or just barely 20.

I personally feel that youngsters should be given 2 to 3 years upon completion of their studies to figure out who they really are and what they really want. In my case, the two years after my graduation helped me understand myself a lot better. When you are still in school, you mainly tend to worry about your career and you hardly ever think about marriage. But once you settle down in a job it gives you a lot of time to really think about what you really want. In fact its during that time of life that you really discover who you are as a person.

I'm not against arranged marriage but I totally dislike when there's more than 3-4 years of difference in ages of the bride and groom. In my opinion the closer the ages are it becomes easier to accept the other person as an equal. I can't imagine being in early 20s and marrying someone 8-10 years older than myself. I know women who are in such marriages and say they are super happy but I have my own doubts as its one thing to be truly happy and its totally different to convince yourself that you can't be any happier.

The whole idea of making a long term commitment with an unknown person seems pretty outdated. I'd rather stay single and wake up unhappy a few mornings rather than get married to a wrong person and be unhappy the whole time. Even when you are having an arranged marriage, I think its more important to have a long enough courtship period. The courtship period really helps the bride and the groom to get to know each other really well. In addition, if things don't go well you're better off with breaking that engagement than breaking your marriage.

I had 1 year between my engagement and marriage and time went by so quickly and during that period not only did i get to know my spouse better but his family also. By the time I got married I didn't feel like a total stranger and the transition was easier. There were people who were cynical and were trying to convince me to get married within the next 2-3 months. In fact, one person even suggested that I get married secretively in US (When I'm publicly engaged why should I secretly get married!!!). According to them once engaged its tough to control your urges, in all honesty any disciplined child would know about self-control.

Well, anyways I personally feel that a person should get married only when they feel they are ready (be it teenage or late 20s) and are confident that this relationship with the other person will take them somewhere(not to the courts!!). This is one decision that you need to make for yourself disregarding the pressure from others. We all want to get married just once in life and there's really nothing wrong in taking time to make that decision.