Five Types of People You See At a Mall

Malls. Everybody loves them. The sheer variety of brands and shops in the malls makes it the United Nations of the retail world. Let’s take Chennai’s very own Phoenix as an example. We have the very Indian Big Bazaar right next to the very American Brooks Brothers. The irony of all of this being that, 90% of the people who visit malls do anything but shop.

Does that Include me? It probably does, not that it is a fault of mine. With Phoenix being a couple of hops from my place, I drop in whenever I am bored or there is a power-cut  You can’t expect me to shop every time. So, my favourite activity in malls is observing people and their idiosyncrasies. One gets to see such a vivid assortment of personalities that it seldom gets boring. Based on my observations, these are the 5 kinds of people you will certainly encounter in any mall.

The “I wear Shades, that instantly makes me about 279 times cooler than you” guy – Oh no. I have nothing against people wearing sunglasses. I mean it’s a perfectly sensible fashion statement while you are out there in the sun or on a beach. But wearing sunglasses inside a mall which has a fair blast of Air conditioning and enough provision to prevent sunrays from permeating inside? That is as wannabe as it gets. These guys can often be seen in tight tees, faded jeans, a ‘cool’ chain with some weird pendant dangling around their necks and sneakers on their feet. The strut in their walk is enough for people to mistake them to be the owner of at least one of the shops. The truth is you will seldom see them carrying even a single shopping bag. They are too cool for shopping now, aren't they?.

The “Isn’t this the Lakme Fashion Week?” girl – There is a section of the female sex which believes that one needs to get decked up in the best possible party clothes to visit a mall on a dull Thursday evening. Why? No one will ever know. These girls are often seen in small clusters, walking ever so slowly, blocking the entire corridor and forcing the people behind them to slow down in their endeavors. They can be found in stores like The Body Shop, Chemistry, Enamor, Parcos etc. Unlike the cool dude above, these pretty lasses do tend to shop at times.

The Big Bazaar family – “Papa, I want to buy that black skirt from Zara”. “Beta, you will get the same stuff in Big Bazaar for half the price. Why waste money?”. The family that stays together, shops together. In Big Bazaar. For them, Big Bazaar = Mall. You got to give it to them, for anything you get inside a mall, is also available in Big Bazaar, and at a much lesser price. Big Bazaars are strategically located besides the car park in malls. So, the BB family (No, not Blackberry) parks their car, goes to Big Bazaar, gets their groceries for the month, buys 2 black skirts for Rs.1200 rather than one from Zara at Rs.2000, collects their freebies and shoots back home. Happy Family, Economic Family. Mall gaya bhaad mai Family.

This is what a Mall will look like when people come just to shop. Deserted.

The Food Court gang – “Live to eat” is passé. “Live to eat in Food Courts” is the new mantra. Or At least that's what a certain percentage of people live by. These people come in a raucous gang of at least 4, roam through each and every corridor the mall has to offer, but never get inside any shop. After an hour or so spent wafting, the Food Court beckons them. They spend at least 2 hours here. The money they spend in eating and wasting food in one day will be enough to pay the credit card bills of an average American. Once they are done gorging, they spend an hour more wafting in the corridors to ensure indigestion stays away. A day well spent.

The Photographers – Save the best for the last they say. I say, save the most annoying for the last. Yes, this bunch of people is the most annoying lot that exists in a mall. These people are proof that smartphones or DSLRs and douchebags is a match made in the sacred garden of tomfoolery.  How else does one justify people getting their photos clicked in front of absolutely any form of art, banners of brands, with a can of pepsi, with a pizza in hand and what not? How else is blocking the entire corridor for a good minute just to get the perfect pic clicked rational? How else is getting yourself clicked in a dress which you have absolutely no idea of buying, with a stupid duckface excusable? And finally, how else does a ‘wearing shades and staring into the distance’ pose make sense inside a freaking mall? There should be an exclusive photography zone in each mall to quench the thirst of this bunch. The malls will be a much better place then. 

The Great Mall of China - Not So Great.

AGS Cinemas, Navalur. Opened in the Coromandel Plaza about 3-4 years back. Being within the IT corridor of Chennai, the cinemas have been doing pretty good business. But the mall has remained largely unoccupied. In fact, fully unoccupied. Except for the movies and a few eateries thriving on the moviegoers falling hungry, the entire retail space has found no takers. The reasons probably are being too far from the city limits, and the builders looking a bit too much into the future.

If you think this is a plan gone awry, well then how about this? A mall in China, New South China Mall, which was going to be the biggest mall in the world in terms of leasable retail area, has been 99% unoccupied since it was built in 2005. That’s 8 years running, and still no one has turned up. What makes it more startling is, it exists in an area which is probably the world’s biggest megalopolis.

A usual day in the Great Mall of China

Alex Hu, a Chinese Instant Noodles tycoon built this monster mall in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province. It was so large in its entirety that it was dubbed the Great Mall of China, for obvious reasons. This mall was going to be the symbol of the bubbling consumer culture of China. It was also ironic that China being a communist country was now home to the world’s biggest symbol of capitalism. On completion, the mall covered about 9 and a half million square feet, with over 2300 retail spaces.

The mall was expected to have a daily footfall of 70000 upwards. It was going to be the abode of retailers from all over the world. It was going to be THE mall in the world. But, none of these came to fruition. China’s “If you build it they will come” mentality had gone kaput.

Reason? The location, though within a megalopolis, was a terrible decision. Dongguan is a city of factories, and most of the dwellers are factory workers. Its connectivity with nearby cities of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou is questionable, with no effective transportation. Alex Hu built it here for he wanted to build in his home city, but it just did not work out. The site of the mall is a complete disaster.

Owing to these factors, the mall bears a deserted look. It has maintained a consistent 1% occupancy rate. Not a consistency the builders would be proud of. It bears the looks of a ghost town. The difference being ghost towns had people before who left due to various reasons. But here, No one ever came. If anyone ever wanted to know how a post apocalyptic world will look like, this might be the right place to be.

Get a detailed insight into this mall here.