The Little Shop down the Road

Most people on vacation carry books with them.

The Little Shop down the Road

As a child, my art teachers had nurtured great hopes for me but at some point when it was time to choose between art and literature, the written word triumphed. I continued to paint through my college years. In my grandmother's home where I lived then, I had the run of the entire top floor overlooking the garden on one side and the little alley on the other while above the sky stretched and stretched, undisturbed or marred by even the tail stream of a jet plane. It was a rather idyllic setting to play artist and as I come from a family of artists, the old house ingested the steeping of linseed oil, turpentine and the paint smells with a sigh of relief, perhaps.

There was a continuity to it and a sense of calm from that quiet hours spent with colour and brush.

Over the years, I began to paint less and less. First, I was too caught up with trying to make a career. Then the baby became too interested in paint tubes and bottles. Slowly, the painting materials began to spend more time in their carton than outside.

But here I was wanting to retrieve that sense of quiet again and I had to procure supplies to take with me on my trip.

So I called up this swank new stationery store. They, I imagined, would have just about everything I needed under one roof. That's what I like about cities, I told myself, as I headed from my village into town.

You call the store, a pleasant voice assures you on their stock, you get there, flash your credit card and you are already on your way to being artist, writer, button maker, whatever.

I got into Cunningham Road and in through the glass doors of the swank new store. And I realised that I had made a long and wasted trip. The voice on the phone had absolutely no idea about what my needs were. It had just promised without even bothering to cross-check.

In utter desperation, I stopped next at a little stationery shop in Cox Town on my way home. Once I used to buy from here posters of Indian leaders, Indian birds etc. for my son's school projects. The little store is just about 1/100th the size of that posh establishment, but the man there knew precisely what he had and what he didn't. Since what he had was pretty much everything I needed and more, I went home happy as the boy who stood next to me buying a new geometry box.

There is no parking; there isn't a coffee shop or an escalator, there aren't offers and deals but I know for sure that it is the little shop in Cox Town that will have my custom in future. For they, unlike their well-appointed cousins, seem to know what they are doing!

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