I had just joined Ethiraj College for my Bachelor’s course in English Literature, when my father was transferred again. He was convinced that nowhere can you get a better education than in Madras, and so desperate hostel-hunting began. I went with my classmates who were in the Ethiraj College hostel to check it out, but one look at the crowded rooms (as a junior I was expected to share the room with three more) and I hitched up my jeans and ran. Being an only child, I was used to complete privacy and the thought of sharing space scared the daylights out of me. Then, some good soul informed me about Rani Meyyammai hostel – a new students’ hostel opposite the college.

When my father learnt that the Ethiraj Principal herself was a committee member of the hostel administration, he saw no fault in my staying there. I didn’t grumble too much either, for the room was to be shared with only one other and I was confident that I could grit my teeth and manage that. That is how is how I moved next door to Spencer’s.

Spencer’s was a fascinating store dripping with old world charm. The exterior, with its spires and turrets, dominated arterial Mount Road. I had often passed the sprawling, reddish building but had never entered it. Some day , I promised myself, I would go in there. My mother got almost every thing she needed from the Army canteen and was not an avid shopper. When she needed to buy clothes and other kitchen stuff, she preferred to nip down to Parry’s Corner which was closer to Fort St George. Besides, she was brought up in the tradition of a prudent South Indian woman and, despite the Army life, stuck to be being a housewife who had no time for fripperies.

Department stores were not of much interest to mothers like her who had no fascination for anything besides the basics. I was, however, as degenerate (in her mind) as the youth of then and loved to ogle at things I could not afford or would not be allowed to buy. It was still those times when shopping of any kind was a family field trip and even if you were allowed to indicate your preferences, the final decisions were a parental prerogative.

My heart sang with joy – I was now free to do my own shopping. Drawing on all my inner reserve of bravado, I headed for Spencer’s. As I walked from the hostel down Binny Road (sorry, folks, but despite renaming and trying to ram those new names down the throat, most people still use the old names), past the gleaming white Connemara Hotel, I felt mighty important.

The first time I entered “The Spencer” I was intimidated by the huge store that seemed to stretch endlessly on either side of the entrance. It had long wood and glass counters, behind which stood sales personnel at attention. There was hallowed silence and everyone spoke in hushed tones. I almost expected to be handed out detention for daring to enter the precincts! I was entering the sanctum sanctorum of the shopping world. There I stood, a gawking teenager desperately clutching my money while the massive shelves glowered down at me disdainfully. I always expected one of the shelves to lean forward and curl its lips and shake a fist at me – like a “propah” gentleman chiding an urchin in some English club. The fact that I was dressed in (the then stylish and, in retrospect, horrendous) bell-bottom pants did not endear me to the shelves or those who managed them.

Spencer’s was a place to be seen shopping if you wanted to be counted among the elite of Madras. I often wondered what I was doing there. Later, I resolved that each time I went in I would not slink around as if I was trying to rob the place but walk in as a customer who had money to buy. Each visit emboldened me and it was not long before I would stride in nonchalantly, as if I had been doing it all my life! Glory days – what fun it was to walk up and down the wooden floor and peer at things. I remember it as the first day of my addiction to shopalcoholism!

The centre of the aisle to the left was where I always headed first and there stood the pastry shelves laden with rich, moist slices of cakes in delicate pinks and rich chocolate browns topped with pretty roses and silver balls. They were not the kind you bought from some bakery around the corner – they were really oh la di da types. I would point to one or two of them (depending on how much I had managed to stretch my ­finances for the month) and the shop assistant would pack them in a little box for me. I would then go to the counter to pay for it. The payment counter was very highbrow too and looked like a bank counter with someone like a teller sitting behind the wooden bars.

There was another reason I visited Spencer’s. A secret one. I was nicknamed Golliwog – not entirely due to my dark skin but because I had absolutely frizzy hair that had a will of its own. Although I put oodles of oil and plaited it as tight as I could, it always managed to stand on end and was the bane of my life. Always wanting what was not, I yearned for smooth straight hair like others. This was much before people went to beauty parlours and paid a bomb to perm their hair for the same effect! Then, one day, I chanced upon a magazine that offered what seemed a panacea – a conditioner called Estolan that would smoothen the frizz. Shampoos were as high as an average collegiate would go for hair grooming and fashionable (the term ‘upmarket’ hadn’t been invented yet, so the word was ‘fashionable’) products like hair conditioners were not available except in Spencer’s. Falling for the promise of silky tresses, I scrimped and saved for that magic jar which would smoothen my plait of rough coir into satin. I still have not figured out after all these years why my heart pounded and my knees buckled as I walked up the first time to the cosmetic counter and stammered the name of the magic potion. I bore it triumphantly back to the hostel with a Julian veni vidi vici smile! By the way, the jury is still out on whether it fulfilled the promise or not.

Christmas time, Spencer’s caught on the festive mood, too. The cheer and the warmth of the Season crept into all that wood and they went from Humph! to Ho-Ho!! There were discreet Christmas festoons, not the hit-you-in-the-face types that you see in malls now. Little baubles of red and green, tiny wisps of delicate streamers, pretty little wreaths of holly were hung up. There were no blaring Christmas jingles on the loop till you are ready to dig someone’s eyeballs out after hearing the ditty fifty times before you leave. The counters in the patisserie were lined with moist, rich plum cakes, each of which had a miniature golden bell and a piece of holly stuck in them. Some were with royal icing and the words ‘Merry Christmas’ in elegant cursive slant. They also had long, red, stuffed stockings for sale (since no one offered to do so, I bought them for myself) which had, among other goodies inside, delicious chocolates wrapped in silver and gold foil. Grown up on a diet of Enid Blyton in childhood and steeping myself in English classics in college, Spencer’s was an illustration of English lore come alive.

When I graduated and left Madras, I carried cherished memories not only of my hostel friends but also of Spencer’s. I felt the grief of the passing of a friend when I read the news in another city that Spencer’s had burned down and, as with friends of adolescent days, though many new ones may come into our lives later, the memory of innocent love lingers on.