My Salary

Confessions Of A Shopaholic had a lovely green scarf in it. I have one as well, having been inspired by that movie. I don’t often wear scarves so for the most part it served as a reminder when I am spending too much. But these days I have a spare room and I don’t see the green scarf a lot so it has not been doing its job as a Shopaholic Reminder very well.

Most of my spending, you realise, is online. I have the main sites on a neat little folder and I spend many happy minutes every day on the folder, buying things I don’t immediately need but want and yet once it’s on my cart, grow to want it more and more till I start to need it. Very toxic. But there you go.

I didn’t use to be like this. I used to never buy anything other than books and food. I wore boy sweaters for the longest time because my dad never understood the difference between girl sweaters and boy sweaters. I wore my mother’s designs because fashion didn’t matter to me. Actually, that’s not wholly true. I fell in love with Princess Diana of Wales as many others also did, and often took the coffee table book with me to the seamstress and told her to make the exact same dress as hers. Mizo seamstresses are very talented!

Lately, I’ve been buying a lot. I have a lot of the same shit in different colours as well because even though I can be a bit of an online shopaholic, I still am basic and I like what I like. I have the exact same sweater design in about 5 different patterns. I also have two unused personalized notebooks because they’re pretty. I also have a bucketful of shampoo, conditioners and shower gels because they’re so pretty. I also have bottles of orange and citrus based oils and lotions because they smell pretty and also the bottles are so pretty. You get the idea.

But most of these I can rationalize because they come cheap online. Or at least a good % slashed off of their MRPs. And a lot of them are brand names. And you can’t often get them in Mizoram, and certainly not outside Aizawl. And I am never posted in Aizawl. 

I wore my favourite puan on the Republic Day celebrations, 2025. It is black but with three distinct patterns. It has pretty flowers, siniar style and then some weird computer blur pattern. I fell in love with it the very first time I saw it back in 2014 when I joined service and became a salaried woman. I gazed at it, ran my fingers through it and fucking sighed. It cost 7500 bucks. In 2014. That was steep! I spent so much time agonizing over it that my mother said: Just buy it, you have your own money now, spend it; you’ll always regret not owning it.

My mother is a wise woman. I paid 7500 for this puan back in 2014 but I have always loved it and it remains a favourite and its beauty has never dwindled in my eyes. I loved it then and I love it today. I realise I am weirdly loyal to what I love and hardly ever budge until the trust is irrevocably broken. And puan doesn't break trust. My mother also unintentionally taught me another lesson at the time: if you like something, go for it; you’ll always regret not going for what you want.

It’s a very wise advice and one I’ve followed ever since. They have made for interesting times. I also bought a gorgeous ceramic pink flower tea-set with one of my first few salaries. I love it still. 

No regrets, man.