The princess and her marble palace

Once there was a princess. She was born with a TV remote in her mouth. As she started crawling around the beautiful marble palace that her parents made especially for her, she learnt to pronounce ‘v-i-d-e-o c-a-s-s-e-t-t-e r-e-c-o-r-d-e-r’ and ‘s-a-n-d-w-i-c-h t-o-a-s-t-e-r’. Her personal attendant told her that these were things the king and queen hadn’t ever seen or used themselves but had acquired in celebration of the princess’ birth. On her first birthday, the princess received gifts from her parents and the many people that seemed to adore her. The gifts ranged from frocks studded in diamonds to chocolates imported from Switzerland.

 Thereafter, till she grew up, the marble palace grew around her to include every thing that could make her happy and comfortable. People sometimes visited from far off countries and exclaimed on seeing her reach up to the third shelf to obtain her chocolate energy drinks and exclaimed that a flexible Swedish shelf system will make sure her arms don’t hurt, or they saw her walking to the landline to talk to her friend about the impending home work and suggested that a portable ‘mobile’ phone from Hong Kong will give respite to her delicate feet or they pitied her on commuting to school in a chauffeur-driven sedan without an air conditioning system and recommended custom made cars from the U.S.A.

But as the princess grew up, she started resenting things procured for her by her parents, relatives or well-wishers. They would spring on her a yellow pair of jeans with a navy blue halter-necked top and expect her to wear it with a beige pair of pumps. Or they would get her platinum jewels when she had been dreaming of white gold for the last two weeks. They would give her an orange ceramic vase that would spoil the décor of her solid wood living room. Or make her dress in an outdated green kimono and make her attend a party in it!

In time, the princess managed to convince her parents, the king and the queen, that she needed to buy her own clothes, shoes, perfumed, jewels, bags, cosmetics and things to design her palace. But her woes didn’t end. She had to step out in the blazing sun that tainted her porcelain complexion every time she went out. She had to skim through endless things on display, deal with pesky sales people, scout store after store for different brands she liked, battle the increasing traffic and most of all wait till the next day if she suddenly desired something at 3 AM.

That is when the princess met somebody charming (she wasn’t sure if it was a prince, plus didn’t yet want to limit her options). It was a man (smartly dressed), holding a beautiful GUESS bag (!) and stunning MISS SIXTY (!!) jeans standing at the doorsteps of her neighboring princess’ palace atop his handsome black horse! The princess sent her attendant to immediately summon this beautiful and resourceful man home. The rest, as they say, was history.

The charming man with even more charming products was a delivery person from a new dream destination called JABONG. He waited for the neighboring princess to order all things of her choice through her laptop or ipad or mobile or any online mechanism she selected, and then miraculously delivered it right at her palace-steps! He even came back instantly if she didn’t like any of the things delivered and took them before she started crying. He told our princess that he will be happy to give her the same services and shared the address of this magic destination. The princess closed her eyes to hold in her happy elated tears…

When she opened her eyes, she was back to being me. Canary. Silly poor me.

Minus sedan, minus chauffeur, minus marble palace, minus indulgent parents, minus luxuries that make you cry with happiness. Sad silly goofy me. Minus attendant, minus charming JABONG ma–- WAIT! FREAKING WAIT! The man was still there and wondering why suddenly from looking all regal and majestic, I had this clumsy air around me. But clearly he was too much of a gentleman to show it to me. After waiting for me to croak something from my mouth hung dry in mid air, he said, “Madam, if you have noted the website, I would like to take your leave?” Mouth hung in mid air opens and closes without sound. “Madam?” Finally springing into action. “Yes, ofcourse. Thanks. Sure.” And he rides away (horse replaced by some two-wheeler).

I immediately spring to my laptop and load the website. And boy! Everything I thought can make me happy stared right at me. And at prices that made me sick with joy. And with terms that made me emotional. 30-day return. Free shipping. Cash on delivery. 24-hour customer support. Seasonal offers. The works. Needless to tell you, I hunted for my credit card and ordered the first thing that caught my fancy. A gorgeous MISHKA handbag. It got delivered in two days and the entire experience was smoother than freshly waxed skin. And I was hooked. But all that will come in the next post. In this post, I just want to tell you simply why I love shopping at Jabong. I love it because it makes me feel that little joys can be gotten sitting at home, that somebody knows exactly what I like and stocks up the Jabong store with it, somebody is ready to talk to me whenever I pick the phone and somebody wants to deliver my little joys to me with a smile right at my door step. I love it because Jabong makes me feel like the princess I have always dreamt of being (and often pretended of being – as you would have obviously guessed by now).

I love it because it is my little marble palace.

This post is a part of Jabong Bloggers Contest. A pioneer in online shopping in India, Jabong.com promises to fulfill all your style based needs through its wide range of lifestyle products for men, women & kids.