Sunday afternoon, CMC employee Sheila accompanied us to downtown Chennai to go shopping. Our first stop was the government store where we perused three floors of sandstone, marble, brass and carved furniture. Many of the carved objects were depictions of Hindu Gods. There were almost as many clerks in the store as there were in our group. The uniformed clerks hovered as we shopped, occasionally taking the articles we had selected and carrying them to the counter. When my shopping was completed I was directed to the "billing counter" where two men wrote on paper tags which they handed to me to take to the "cash counter". The man at this counter took the papers, added the totals on a hand held calculator, took my money and counted back the change. He rubber-stamped each of the papers and handed them back to me and pointed me to the next stop, the "delivery counter". As I stepped up to this final destination. I saw two more employees bagging and stapling each item individually. Then all my bagged purchases were put in one big bag and handed to me. What a process!

After a very tasty and relaxing Chinese food lunch we headed to Pothy's Department Store in an extremely busy part of town. The store was packed with hoards of people -- men, women and children. The entire first floor was devoted to sarees, the traditional dress of Indian women. These are a one-size-fits-all garment which consists of 5 1/2 meters of cloth; some of the pieces have a complimentary print at the end of the fabric which can be used to make a matching midriff blouse. Stacks and stacks of colorful sarees lined the walls, sorted by type: cotton, washables, fancy and a variety of silks. Dozens of clerks waited on customers pulling sarees from the shelves as requested. A second floor was more elegantly decorated, had mood lighting and was less crowded. I quickly learned that the sarees on this floor were the high-end and expensive silks and cashmeres.

Next we visited the woman's ready-made floor where we shopped for Sal Wars. The Sal War is the other traditional Indian women's dress. It is a 3-piece coordinated outfit: baggy drawstring pants, tunic top with side slits and a scarf. Shopping here was similar to the American department store - until you were ready to pay. The process here was just as cumbersome as at the government store, but more so because there were crowds at every counter and no organized lines. So you just had to push your way through.

Dressing rooms were limited. Only four rooms with looooong lines for each. Some rooms seemed to be busy for a very long time. Then we learned that entire groups of people that were shopping together were going into the room at once. Hmmm.

The jewelery floor was also an experience. There was one clerk for every four feet of counter space and they LOVED to have us try on their jewelery. One clerk followed Lindsey all around the perimeter of the store, pulling bracelets and necklaces from the shelves for her to try. She felt very pampered!

We seemed to be the only white people in this very crowded store. Several clerks would ask "come from....?" When we answered America, they wanted to know which state. The reaction from the children were most memorable for me. As we were walking up the stairs a little girl about 3 years old came around a corner facing us and stopped as if she had seen a ghost. I'm guessing that she had never seen white skin before. Several children waved at us and then hid behind their parents.

Another observation about the stores that we visited.... behind the counters in both Pothy's and the government store were Hindu shrines. (We pass probably a dozen shrines on the streets between our hotel and the Media Centre on our walk each day.)

I must note that those Team Members that were not so excited about shopping were very good sports. Thanks Guys!!