From the open air to Wal-Mart

Because I come from India, a developing country, shopping here in Grand Forks has been an altogether new experience.

Like any other visiting Indian or person from China, I am overwhelmed by the glamour of America’s “mall culture” and also the huge department stores here in Grand Forks.

Though the consumer-friendly approach here has impressed me a lot, I also miss the rustic flavor shopping has back home – be it New Delhi, India, or my small village in the eastern India, near Nepal.

Walking down to a neighborhood shop in my village – with a jute bag in my hand and hardly a few hundred meters away from my home – and haggling with a shopkeeper over the price of grocery items is what I miss. I also miss the peculiar sound of the poor vendor who used to sell vegetables to my mother every morning on a handcart moving house to house.

But then, my visits to Wal-Mart, K mart, Best Buy, Target and Sam’s Club have exposed me to a new shopping culture here, where the consumer is the king, and there is minimal human interference. It is unlike my country, where I’m used to standing outside and asking the shopkeeper if he has a particular brand of soap, spices or rice. No one else except him could enter the shop.

The first day I entered Wal-Mart and SuperOne, I felt like I was in a different world. Starting with automatic opening of the entrance door, the free movement inside and the availability of all possible items and products I could think of – that surprised me.

What attracts me most is the freedom available to Americans to shop on their own. Even at the newly opened shopping malls in Delhi, this independence is not available.

The few shopping malls that recently have opened in and around Delhi are more popular for their multiplexes and are being advertised as places of entertainment, not shopping. Because the mall prices are much, much higher than those available in neighborhood markets, people go as tourists simply to look at the facility, not to shop.

Comparing the two, I feel the way I’m sure many Americans do: Shopping here can be a pleasure, whereas in Delhi, it’s more of a compulsion – and one I tend to avoid.

Of course, while most consumers will prefer shopping malls and department stores, these things rise out of the economics of a society. A developing country such as India hardly can afford them at present.

For one thing, the mall products are more expensive, as I mentioned. For another, if malls came to India, thousands of neighborhood shopkeepers, vendors and also workers in household industries would see their jobs eliminated.

Old-timers in Grand Forks concede this also has been the case here. The chains of superstores have made “mom and pop” stores a thing of the past.

But I hope to see America’s shopping mall culture flourish, simply because the superstores buy their products from developing countries such as China and India, thus giving jobs to hundreds and thousands of unemployed youths back home.

In fact, because the developing world’s products dominate the marketplace, finding something “Made in the U. S.A.” has been a tough task for me here in the Red River Valley.