|
Metro Plus
Mall hopping, a mega adventure
|
Chennai offers adventure shopping like nowhere else. It demands speed and agility to enter a parking lot at any of the malls, as well as careful planning to be able to find one's way out. GEETA DOCTOR takes a look at the scene...
|
THEY ARE a sign of the times, the malls, mega stores, plazas, shopping complexes and lifestyle stores that proclaim that a city has arrived as a thriving commercial centre. Chennai wears them like a five star General displaying his medals. At every major street corner, there is now the glitter of plate glass and slither of bubble lifts as the new lifestyle stores lure their clients with the promise of an afternoon of shopping that will lift their spirits and lighten their wallets.
"Chennai is at the cutting edge of the retail boom," explained Simone Tata, when she first came here to open the Westside Stores at Spencer Plaza. "You have a very discerning clientele here, not the least because it's been influenced by the film industry. They are adventurous and prepared to shop for quality products, which is what we hope to offer." She certainly got one part of the formula right. Chennai offers adventure shopping like nowhere else. Bangalore might have its Brigade Roads and Commercial Streets, Pondicherry its own JN Road, pretending to be a trendy French boulevard, Mumbai might cordon off a whole chunk of real estate to creating a Disneyland for shoppers, as it has done at the Heeranandani complex near Powai Lake, and Chandigarh might boast of having the best planned and landscaped shopping park for its well heeled citizens, but for sheer cliff hanging thrills there's nothing to match Chennai.
It demands speed, agility and cunning to be able to zoom into a parking lot at any one of the mega stores, or malls, as well as careful planning to be able to get out from there. Most shopping malls in the West, have gigantic parking lots to make sure that more people can get there and park in comfort. Or else, there are very strategically planned bus routes and underground tube stations that are located just below a well-known shopping destination. You just have to surface from one of these to be able to graze at leisure in one of these mammoth shopping machines Like Alice in Wonderland, each one of the shops has been programmed to make sure that you look, stop, see touch and buy! This is true even of Chennai. As you drive past any one of the newer stores, with their huge glass fronted displays, filled with helium balloons, fat red cushions of plastic Valentines, Easter Bunnies and eggs, or small bright messages that make you feel as if you were a child at a birthday party that is being held just for you, you tell yourself that the next time round, you will try and get inside. They tempt you with the fragrance of `foreign' perfumes and cosmetics that have been strategically placed at the entrance foyer of every mega store, such as "Ebony" or "Lifestyle" or "Shoppers Stop". You are drawn into the depths of the shop as inevitably as a bumblebee ramming its proboscis into the throat of a wild flower to drink up the nectar.
There, however, lies the nub of the problem. How do you get in? Where do you park? How can you stuff a queen-size mattress in the back of your car along with frozen fish from the deep freeze at Spencers, and the basket of fresh vegetables from their Food World outlet, not to mention a couple of sticky sugar coated buns that you have collected from the fast food counter at the entrance, if you have to walk down three flights of steps into the underground parking bay? When the old Spencers used to be the Mecca of the memsahib, not only were there willing helpers to carry some of these items into the waiting Dodge, or Studebaker, which was attended by a well dressed chauffeur, your vehicle would be waiting for you just outside the famously colonnaded entrance.
Today, the visitor to Spencers needs to have the navigating skills of a slalom skier who is hoping to qualify for the Winter Olympics. In fact, rallying enthusiasts should organise a competition around the shops and mega-shopping arcades of Chennai, they offer many more U-turns and steep uphill and downhill slopes than any road in the Nilgiris. Getting to park at the entrance of Spencers are for those who have just come out of the Gladiator class, along with Russell Crowe. If you opt for the underground parking, you have to bump into a dark tunnel, turn left at the end of it and hope to find a good berth, not too far from the lift entrance, (never mind that the lifts are always too busy to actually be of any use) and not too close to the groups of bored professional drivers who have to spend their time in these dungeons waiting for their guests to appear. If you miss a chance to park down below, you are persuaded to take the road to the top of the building. Not only does this feel like a game of Snakes and Ladders, the curves are so narrow that invariably there are cars that are stuck and trying to reverse, while sliding down, even as you rev your engine and roar past them. At the very top, the view is terrific, but on a rainy day, you can get thoroughly drenched up there, no doubt in deference to a Prabhudeva style dance sequence that could then be programmed, before you begin your shopping. Again, the journey to find a way into the building is completely baffling. As for the escalators at the main Spencers Towers, they appear to be continually experiencing a breakdown.Despite all these drawbacks, Spencer Plaza still offers the best service. One of the plazas at Egmore, is so badly maintained, that not only has the visitor to step out of the car under a rainforest effect, caused by dripping air-conditioners and hanging wires that dangle perilously in loops all across the side of the building, the drains are also over-flowing. The sign offers advice to the car owner about parking fees, "Do not pay more than Rs. 3 per hour" it says, but the attendant bullies you into parting with Rs. 5. The entrance foyer has three pathetic-looking mechanic rocking horses to keep those mythical children entertained, while the mothers shop, but so depressed have the shopkeepers become, they can only summon the barest flicker of interest, should you want to try any of their famous brands. Like at many of these have-been plazas, the lift operator still waits at the doors of his now shattered plastic glass bubble lift, hoping to ferry passengers to the top. He is furious if you dare use the stairs. It means he could be out of a job.
Many of these older shopping malls have stayed alive only on account of a fast food outlet, or specialty restaurant that might justify making use of their dubious services. But the liftman and the car park attendants are not the only ones to bully you at the entrance to a shop. At Chennai's latest shopping marvel, the smartly turned out doorman wishes you a fond farewell as you leave, saying, "Good Afternoon Madame. Good Afternoon Sir, Tea, Coffee, Money, No?" Even if you have managed to avoid his attention, it's difficult not to fall off the edge of the pavement in front of this particular shop and find yourself shooting your car straight into the traffic whizzing by at the side. Unless they manage to erect some kind of barrier, there is bound to be a serious accident at this spot. It must be said, however, they not only do not charge for you to park under these conditions, they offer a vigilant valet service. Just as interesting as it is to observe the token rocking horse at the entrance is to notice how many of the new malls and mega stores have installed their wheelchair at the top of a shiny flight of stairs.
At "Lifestyle" for instance, where the steps are unusually steep, there does not seem to be any sign of a ramp, for the wheelchair that is displayed at the side of the entrance. Again, it must be a source of unhappiness to the promoters of this particular shop that the flyover that was built in front of it, has more or less permanently damaged any hope of easy access to it.Not only do visitors coming down Mowbrays Road, have to whiz around at breakneck speed to make a U-turn before they can effect an entry, they have to make a steep climb past the gates and then angle park on a downward slope. Leaving is even more hazardous you have to back up the slope, towards the entrance steps, hoping not to run down any visitor, before you can straighten up and exit. Here again, because of the steep slope leading out of the shop, you tend to shoot straight into a stream of cars that are themselves trying to creep past under the flyover. Even if the flyover may be said to have added to their woes, there can be no excuse for any planner or promoter who created such a dangerous and impractical parking lot for what was meant to be a "Lifestyle" changing experience. If one shopping centre stands out for overall ease of access, it has to be the Isphahani Center on Nungambakkam. Though it is located on a very busy road, there is plenty of parking space on all sides. It used to be a veritable joy to be able to not just park there, but to indulge in that excellent sport known as bird watching, as those ardent young men in leather jackets who roar in on their twin engine jets, will tell you.
Of late, however, even the Isphahani Center has cracked down on these simple joys by introducing a system of parking tickets, being handed out by some of the worst bullies in the trade. It almost makes you believe that there are two systems at work here, one that wants to make shopping the peak experience that it is supposed to be, the other, a darker puritanical element that will always take the fun out of it.
The marketing gurus might well say that Chennai is the next boom town.
For the moment however the only sound they will hear is the "boom: boom — boom:boom" sound of the timid Chennai consumer's heart giving a dangerous shopping experience a miss.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
|
