Column

For the past few days I’ve been vomiting uncontrollably, sweating profusely and generally cringing with a kind of fear that I haven’t experienced since our wedding night. By locking doors and shutting blinds, I have brought the fear quotient down by three to four per cent.

But the end result is that I cannot step out in public. I’m so paralysed with fear that if I came in contact with any member of society, I will promptly wither away.

Of course, this fear is a seasonal thing. I have been experiencing it for the past few years. In fact, every time they have this Lakme Fashion Week, my whole world collapses, and I am completely convinced that the end is near.

Just writing the words ‘fashion week’ down on this paper took most of my Sunday and all of Monday. Even now my fingers, err… my arm, no actually my whole body is completely numb with the effort.

But where did this irrational fear of fashion come from? Why this heightened anxiety? Why does the very mention of costly apparel cut me to the quick? Well, to be frank after months of self-psychiatric treatment, I’ve traced the source of this terror to an incident from my sordid past.

When I was a young boy, (a time when India would win cricket matches at home) my family had gone on a short excursion to London. The trip was ostensibly to meet the queen. But much to my chagrin the meeting never happened.

Apparently the nursery rhyme was completely true. The queen was in her castle counting all her money. In actuality, we were in London for a much more sinister, dark and evil purpose - shopping.

Like sex, cricket and politics (which today is one and the same thing), your first shopping experience makes a major impact on your views and evolution as a shopper.

The London experience of nine long days, 143 shops, left a scar that no amount of medication, ayurvedic or otherwise could heal. Years later the wounds remain.

So every time the London circus comes to town, I have to go underground. No amount of persuasion can lift me up while the fashion week is on. I’d rather be Saddam Hussein.