Kishore Singh: Drunk on shopping

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Because my wife was busy, she was quite happy when a friend called to say he and I could use part of Sunday to attend to his wife's shopping at the food (and hospitality industry) fair at Pragati Maidan. It wasn't something I wanted to do, but staying home meant I would have to be at my wife's beck and call which, after a tiring week at work and two decades of being married, paled in comparison to the attractions of lugging packets of rice and imported wonder wipes across an exhibition ground. "At least," sniffed my wife, "you'll stay out of mischief." At least," sniffed his, "you won't hang around drinking."

We didn't do much lugging either. Having decided early on that nothing on his wife's meticulously handwritten list was available, my friend wandered around desultorily, asking about a piece of equipment here, a bit of tableware there. There were better uses of a Sunday, not least of which could have been spent out in the balcony with a chilled bottle of beer to celebrate the coming of spring.

Sometime during the course of our peregrinations we found ourselves at a "Tasty Europe" stall where we were easily persuaded to sample some cheese. Having liked the Roquefort, it was clear we had cleared some nature of test and found ourselves being herded off ceremoniously behind a screen into a tasting room for wines "" clearly reserved for those with a penchant for strong cheeses.

By curious coincidence, presiding over the ceremonies was another friend, and a sommelier to boot, who immediately made place for us in front of the counter of European wines. Not given to wasting much time, he got down to the task at hand somewhat fast. Glasses were apportioned "" a few others who'd joined us at the counter were young chefs who clearly preferred cheese to paneer too "" and before you could say "Cheers", there was a cool Chablis before us, or perhaps it was a chardonnay.

The white went down smoothly, to be replaced by a red, and still another red. The sommelier then proceeded to open a bottle of champagne for some more tasting, else, he said, "it would simply lie around in some carton". Having rescued it from that sad fate, he followed it up somewhat strangely with a dessert sherry that was so sweet, he simply had to have us cleanse out our palates with a drier version that proved so salty to the taste it was best had with seafood, but meanwhile perhaps we needed something a little more refreshing to get over it...

By now clearly we'd sampled enough, and though there were heaps of untouched bottles and the sommelier seemed willing and more, it was clear that it would be best if we left, if we were to go home on our own steam. That my friend managed a snooze at home was hardly surprising (he told his wife he was tired from all the walking around), but the next evening when he called to say he'd got some things from the fair that I'd wanted (I hadn't), I could understand why he'd gone back.

This time though he had clearly lugged some stuff around because he insisted we needed mayonnaise and some silly gadgetry employed for making soup. "But why did you go back?" I asked him. "Just for a look around," he mumbled, as I poured him a whisky. Had he forgotten he'd seemed bored the previous day, I reminded him. Had I forgotten we'd had quite a good time of it, he reminded me with a wink. Which must be the reason, my wife said later, that he'd got carried away and brought us a jar of "eggless" mayonnaise "" which thing, we now have proof, isn't an oxymoron after all.