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I consider myself a fitness freak. But that’s me. My wife thinks I am just a freak who only talks about fitness. She, on the other hand, practises what she preaches. In other words, she is into fitness and goes to the shopping mall everyday. “It’s the best form of mental and physical exercise,” she reasons like a divorce lawyer. “You think it’s easy to walk tirelessly, stand endlessly, and resist the temptation of buying something you fancy but can’t afford or finally end up in the food court?”

Some people say exercising is the best stress-buster. Most women say you can achieve the same result with a trip to the shopping mall. I used to have a colleague who used to storm out of the office each time she was angry or got into a squabble with her boss and returned an hour later with a huge grin and a new dress! While it’s said that Americans spend more time at shopping malls—an average of 12 hours in a month—than anywhere outside their homes and jobs, the same is slowly becoming true of Indians.

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the concept of shopping malls - particularly through reading Bill Bryson than actually visiting the malls! While Bryson points out that there is no recorded origin of the word ‘mall’, it can be traced to a sixteenth century game called ‘pall mall’ (pronounced pell-mell) which was a cross between golf and croquet.

Ironically, the architect of modern malls was a Viennese named Victor Gruen, whose intention was to recreate in America the unrushed café-society atmosphere of European city centres. But, over the years, shopping at malls got a scientific approach with Reilly’s Law of Retail Gravitation which emphasised on a mix of stores necessary to keep people moving. Hence, we now find malls having benches without backrests so that you wouldn’t sit and relax for too long. The same goes for the food court tables which are designed to make you feel cramped and uncomfortable after ten minutes. By the way, the first escalator was installed at the department store Harrod’s in London!

I tried to show off my newly acquired knowledge of malls to my wife. “How does it help?” she asked. “Do you know where the Biba showroom at Inorbit is or whether there’s Revolutions at Infiniti?” I am still checking Bryson’s books for that info!