Chaitra sale and a crucial decision i made early on

this month in our calendar is called Chaitra... the last month before the New Year (Nababarsha), which falls either on 14th or 15th of April each year...
and every year at this time, there is a clearance sale of garments... from shops to footpath stalls (i would not know about malls that have sprung up now), every shop that sells clothes, offers a sale...
shops are choc-a-bloc with buyers since customers suddenly become more trusting when it comes to goods offered on sale, mostly women, who buy for an entire household... there is (was, to be more apt since i am talking about 18 years back, when i left Kolkata, interspersed with two brief stays in between) a custom of gifts to youngsters and people who come helping at home on Nababarsha...
whether goods really become cheaper on sale, i have no idea... what i am convinced about is that the quality of goods genuinely suffer...
if one can go on the first few days, one lands up buying quality stuff at bargain prices, made more attractive with saree clad Bong housewives who, gloat over their bargaining skills with the shopkeepers, in mid-day scorching sun...

as i write this, i re-experience the numerous occasions when i accompanied Mom in her exploits, shopping for Nababarsha... money was limited, she made a long list, edited it to delete items which she thought would not make it through Dad who would not look at the list, but would allocate the funds for them...
if the going was good, she would be allocated all that she asked for... if not, she would have to be happy with what Dad thought was appropriate...

i vividly remember the little victory she scored when the amount was okayed... or the little hurt on her face when it was not... and it is the latter that had convinced me the need to be independent financially so that i could go impulse shopping, if i needed to...

i saw the same victory on her face when she was here with us last year and i was out with her, she next to me on my modest car, bought with my own modest means... but there again, it was laced with a thin film of tears in her large eyes (my large eyes are from her) on two counts... of joy that her daughter has done what she could not; of sorrow that her husband did not live to see what she has...

i don't know which of the emotions was primary, though...