By Javaria Said TDT3
Vacations are coming to an end and university is about to start. A fresh semester is about to begin, with new courses, new teachers and a lot of other things to look forward to. But enough to dampen the most exuberant of spirits is the fact that it is time for back-to-school shopping. This is when one has to drag oneself to the bazaar. Yes surprisingly despite being a girl I don't like to shop, detest it to be more exact. Usually my mum shops for me but this year she refused flat out, "shop for yourself or no new clothes!" And in spite of how little I may care about my appearance (during half of the semester I won't even bother to iron), one cannot go to university with the same old wardrobe. At least for the first week you have to have something new to flaunt, and no I don't know who wrote that law).
And the same school bag? You got to be kidding. Time to hit the stores, check the brands and empty the wallet for 'that' bag and then pray that no one else has the same thing. Because "of course" you can't carry the same thing as another person, at least no self-respecting female can. But bags and shoes are the easy part (at least for me; I don't match and wear) I can only but pity the females who wear different accessories everyday, imagine the trips to the bazaar *shudder* (apparently they enjoy it, can't say anything about tastes now can we).
But clothes, clothes you can never have enough of. No 30 minutes in one shop and you are through. No sir-E. This year due to my mum's refusal to shop for me, I had to bear the tortures of the bazaar, the haggling, the crowds, and the noise. And to think, females do this for fun. Weird sense of entertainment! How can walking for 3 hours in the midst of the most terrible of crowds, in the heat of Karachi, going over a million shops, checking out a gazillion things and ending up buying the first thing you looked at from the first shop you entered be fun? And that too, many a times.
Clothes bought torture over? Sadly no. Now come the compulsory visits to the tailor. My mum is cruel, she insisted I go or she wouldn't give them. So listening to the tailors crap, making endless rounds to their shop to listen to "kal mil jaega," and eventually getting it weeks later stitched in your mother's size. Then giving it back, making 10 more rounds and getting it again to still find it wrong. I know people would have taken it back to the tailor. Me? I am but human. They will work for me as is. I don't care if I have to wear the same clothes for the rest of my life I am not going through this again.