If you’ve hung out at a supermarket for hours, and left with only a pack of chips and a can of diet coke, you’re not alone. The allure of the gleaming aisles, stacked with rows and rows of colourful boxes, puffed packs, canned drinks, and farm-fresh produce goes beyond what one “needs.” Who can possibly need Butternut squash, or a can of Coke Cherry? But we don’t always go to supermarkets to feed our stomachs. Sometimes, we simply visit and linger longer than normal to feast our eyes.

Wander Woman’s affinity towards supermarkets can be traced back to a childhood family trip to Goa. One day, while walking towards the hotel, a small cosy supermarket appeared before her like a dream. The two-aisled store lit in a warm yellow light felt like an escape to a wonderland. The candy aisle shone with names she’d never heard of before. Ice breakers? Altoids? It remains the best memory from the trip for her. Something unexpected, dreamy, sweet and lit up in fairy lights—the supermarket.

But, not every supermarket can turn this woman into a certified lurker. Some are designed to simply tick your grocery list, pay, and head out. But then, there are some wonderful people in the world who truly capture the ephemeral emotion of that little girl’s childhood memory, condense it to form and structure, fill it with magical things, and voila! We have a supermarket where one can even spend the entire afternoon and not feel fatigued.

The Food Square is one such space.

A four-tiered cherry chocolate cake lined with candied cherries, frosted beautifully with over-piping details (Lambeth style. I know that we all know that vintage cakes are baaackkkk) and ruffles accurately sums up Food Square. Decadent. Delightful. Delicious. The 4-floor store stands tall on the busy traffic-heavy Linking Road, where the constant rush can fool one into believing that magic isn’t real. But step inside the glass doors, and it unfurls itself, hitting you with a sudden realisation—reality is magical. This is how Harry Potter must have felt the first time he went through Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Or what those kids in Narnia experienced when they passed through the mystical closet.

Avocado oil. Truffle and mushroom risotto. Kikkoman light soya sauce. Gochujang. Lobster flavoured crackers. Mushroom Coffee. Lindt. Godiva pearls. The names bounce off the front display aisle, pulling you into this enchanting world immediately. There’s no turning back now. Grab a wheely-basket and enjoy the ride. First up, the exciting farm-to-table section, where one not only gets select items for their evening Ceasar’s Salad, Grilled Brocolli and Spinach soup, Avocado toast, and Truffle spaghetti with mushroom that keep the wealthy Michael Kors-donning elite women of the city in perfect shape, but one also gets schooled about names like Eryngii mushrooms, Artichokes, Arugula (rocket leaves), Romaine lettuce and many others.

The cauliflowers sit pretty here, with GM varities that make them look funky in purple and green, not just the boring bland white variety. The tomatoes are pumpkin-shaped and heavily wrinkled like an octogenarian woman’s sagging breasts, tipped with the green leafy part for the nipple. That’s the Tomatoes Coeur De Boeuf from the Netherlands. Tomatoes Big Beef have been flown (or shipped, who knows) first class from France. San Marzano Tomatoes from Italy have landed especially to help the upper crust of the city make their arrabbiata pasta sauce from scratch, and brag about the origins of its ingredients to their esteemed guests at supper. No Ragu for the ultra rich. Tch! Tch! Always skip the avo toast because you can never tell when it’s ripe? Fret not. Their Avo aisle has a placard that schools all avo-amateurs with an empathetic gaze. No one must miss out on their ‘good-fat-brekkie’ in the city for such silly reasons, should they?

Want to get a taste of how the rich eat in the city? There’s avo smoothie, cucumber sushi, paneer bruschettas being prepared fresh on the other side of the aisle by men and women in gloved hands and white chef coats, especially for you. Don’t wish to spend money? There are always the free food samples kept strategically in the corners; sliced pineapples on toothpicks, lavash crackers with sour cream cheese under the glass domes, raw mango slices sprinkled with red chilli powder to rescue you from those tiny but potent hunger pangs arising from looking at all the food on display. The crackers and cheese section has many elite women temporarily forgetting their class and indulging in this “free-loading” act. It’s moments like these that make one linger more, and stifle a laugh. What? Even the rich get hunger pangs. Let them live! Moving on, we’ve a lot of ground to cover. Chop! Chop!

The cheese aisle is where all the culture is cultured. Pun intented. The never ending aisle starts with light fermented drinks like Bombucha, kombucha, Wingreen dips in Garlic and Herb, Chipotle (an all-time favourite) and progresses towards the cheese section, the holy mother cow of the store. Everyone stops and stares at this aisle for longer than necessary. Which cheese should we buy? The obvious answer will be Eleftheria’s Brunost or Konark, given that we’ve read about it in our weekend magazines which make us feel cultured and evolved than the rest of our friends. Wasn’t Konark the one that won a prize at the international cheese awards? They have awards for cheese, for godsake! What is the criteria? Did it make me fart less that the one I ate before this? Charcuterie boards are in vogue, and maybe my Sunday brunch table will look pretty if I placed a Brie cheese with those red tarty grapes, some gluten-free crackers, a lightly smoked Burrata, or a Feta? Maybe what I need is a crash course in cheese before I buy this expensive wheel of cultured milk, and then…then I’ll know every fucking thing about cheese and be confident about which cheese to buy. Yes, the Epigamia blueberry yogurt is going in the cart. All this thinking has made me hungry!

Breads. Baguettes. Wheat Loafs. Foccacia. Brioche buns. Mini croissants in a jar. The bread section is less fussy, if you’ve sailed through the cheese aisle. Pizza bases, kulchas, garlic breads, cheese sticks, the choice is pretty simple and direct. A man in Birkenstock plops three pizza bases in his cart. We know what he’s having for dinner. Shushhh! All this carb is making me barf. Let’s go around the exotic fruit aisle, shall we? Rambutans. Mangosteens. Cacao? Isn’t this supposed be in a farm? What’s a whole cacao bean doing here? Who needs this? Perhaps Pastry chef Pooja Dhingra? Subko Cacao Mill? Grapefruit. Passion fruit, also known as Krishna phal, at least that’s what Swiggy told me! It’s good for regulating diabetes I’ve heard. Must start eating, given my family history of diabetes. Valencia oranges. Why can’t I have the OJ at Boojee? Rujuta Diwekar says eating fruit is better than drinking it. Then why do they sell juice? And why is it sooooo goood! Did someone just put a box of imported red currants in their cart? Do they know it’s for 800 bucks? Get out of this fruits aisle! Take your grapefruit and leave!

Phewwwww. The Le Creusets are sooooo pretty. SMEG. Ohhhh Alaya F has a white SMEG kettle in her kitchen. Yes, I saw in that YouTube video. Wait…is that who I think it is? Is that Shruti Hassan? No, she’s too pretty to be her! Prada bag. Looks like a celebrity. Look. At. Her. Hair. I can’t even. Okay, let’s lurk and find out? Excuse me, isn’t that Shruti Hassan? Ohhh, that’s who she is! Yes, now I remember. She smiled at me just now, and I didn’t know who she was. Yes, that’s Shruti Hassan sister. Heyyy, are you Shruti Hassan? Yes. She smiles. Ohhh, wow, you’re beautiful in real life. Real life? What do you mean, she’s ugly on screen? And I’ve seen your film Race Gurram with Allu Arjun like so many times, you’re soooo gooood in it. Thanks. She’s so polite. I love your hairrrrr. Okay, you’re a lurker, and a freak. But wow! She is really pretty in real life, like Nargis Fakhri, almost. Doe-eyed, silky black hair flowing like a curtain caught in a breeze at a house on the beachfront in Malibu. Accurately described. Lotus lips. Okay I am a straight woman. Of course! Oh look, the famous Stanley cups.

A whole cart dedicated to this fad? They’re so big! One-third of my height, almost. Keeping it back, and coming back after I’m at least 6 feet. Next life. A little 6-year-old girl still in school uniform (because mummy needs to pick up a few things for dinner) picks the one I just kept back. Her mother’s YSL cross body bag screams wealth. The tiny prick is going “mumma, mumma” like a stuck tape recorder. Look mumma a Stanley cup. I want it. Pleaseeeeee. Fucking assholes, these kids. Who are they fooling with their cute voice? Not me. Mumma’s hand is being pulled apart, as she instructs the nanny carefully which brand of masalas they buy for their house. It’s only organic brands, like Organic Tattva. Okay? Mumma I need this cup. Mumma’s blingy feet turn towards the little prick, her voice coated with sugar for her “munchkin.” Okay Shanu, you’re pestering me a lot, so here’s the deal. If you want the Stanley cup, then NO IPAD FOR A MONTH. The kid knows she’s getting the cup, and the iPAD. Monsters. It’s a coincidence that we’re in the sugar aisle as this family drama unfolds. Raw Jaggery. Unsulphured sugar. Organic Sugar. Himalayan Wild Forest Honey. Palm Jaggery. God, this is the cheese aisle all over again!

Finally, something we understand. Pulses and rice. How hard can this be? Pigeon Pea…toor dal. Hmmm. But we only eat the pink one mostly, the Masoor dal. Rajma. Chickpea. Split green moong. Whole green moong. Black gram…urad dal. Why is it white in colour if it’s called Black gram? Don’t go down this road again woman! Rice flour, for the rice bhakri. Nice. Sorghum flour. Stone ground jowar flour. Stone ground? As if! Now say it like Cher from Clueless would say. As if! Well done. So proud of your voice modulation. Must read that book on finding your voice. Haven’t I still found my voice? Miley Cyrus has truly found her voice with her ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ album. And she looks so well, post her divorce. She does Ashtanga yoga. And she got sober. Drinking and partying, how much can one do it? Some people can do it forever and still live. My family, yes. They’re party people. And here I am, shopping for pulses. What a black sheep. Millets. Finger millets. Kodo millets. Barnyard millets. Foxtail millets. Amarantha. What’s this amarantha? One of our sacred texts or granths? Sushi rice. Black rice. Okay how about we skip all this healthy garbage and directly take the pills for all our nutrient requirements?

Omega 3. Moringa powder. Zinc. Collagen powder. Magnesium. Fatty acids. Good for skin. Hair growth. Plump skin. Nutri. Power. Wow. Gummy. Oat milk. Eeewww. Look at the stabilisers and emulsifiers in this yucky liquid. I’d rather drink diet coke and gamble with life. Be brave people! Don’t drink this shittttt. Alt. Co Oat Milk. Epigamia Almond milk. How many almonds had to die for a vegan to be born? Hahahah good joke. Vegans. Granted, that a calf has dibs on his mother’s milk, but I’m next in line. Move over! Mean Girls for life. Looks like we’re through all the aisles, and did we even realise we’ve been here for an hour? And we’re only done with one floor? Looks like we’ll be coming back. Time to leave, for now.

Walking through these aisles, under the artificial warm bright lights, one isn’t just surrounded by things one needs for their survival. No, we don’t need too much to live. But a supermarket is a microcosm of a place, a dew drop on a leaf that represents how food, a vast term, informs a society’s culture, lifestyle, day-to-day living, and thinking. What’s more, it does it so well, we undermine it by never going beyond the shiny packaging, to unpack the real deal. Where magic lives. Some people go to temples and churches. Wander Woman goes to supermarkets. And as Rory and Lorelai Gilmore would say, “It’s a lifestyle. It’s a religion.”



See you again, on the second floor?