Here are four words I dread: Let us go shopping. I am OK with it if the ‘us’ doesn’t include me. Or, if it’s just ‘let’s shop’ (which is an online activity for me). Another thing I hate is generalizing. Yet I am too tempted to say that most women love shopping, most men hate it. I am not breaking new ground in behavioral science here, but Diwali is that time of the year when this tried, tested – and tired – theory gets reinforced. Before I get a whack with that new ladle in my wife’s shopping bag, let me place on record this pact has brought lasting marital peace: She can shop as much as she wants to – without me.

A 2013 survey of 2,000 people found 80% of men disliked shopping with their partners and 45% of men avoided it (God save the rest). The study also found 50% of ‘together shopping’ trips end in arguments after the men get annoyed. Here’s why: Men get bored after 26 minutes of shopping, while women feel (faintly, I suspect) bored after two hours.

Before we blame women for their stamina, let’s listen to Steve Taylor, a psychology teacher at Leeds Beckett University. Taylor attributes it to our ancestral genes. Till 8000 BCE, he says, human beings lived as hunter-gatherers. Hunting was the man’s job, gathering the woman’s. So, a man out hunting sees a boar, kills it and brings it home as fast as possible so his hunt remains fresh. The woman, meanwhile, goes about gathering nuts, fruits and berries, poking, sniffing and squeezing them (much like she does in today’s vegetable markets) before plucking the best.

I see my ancestor grandma in my mother-in-law. When my son was a toddler, she would carry him on her hip, a ‘big shopper’ in her hand (that would also have a couple of idlis that she would feed my son when he cries, probably after those 26 minutes). Twenty-five years later, at 82, she is still most sprightly when she shops. My father-in-law, who now belongs to the ‘20% men’, accompanies her without a whimper of protest. He just told me how they bought a wet grinder after visiting three shops and, on getting back home, my mother-in-law went out to buy dosa batter.

Nobody understands women better than salespeople. “That would look lovely on you, ma’am,” they say with a smile, swishing that saree like a fisherman throwing the net. In two hours, he would’ve had a good catch. Two hours, because she doesn’t fall for the pallu with intricate embroidery while half her gaze is on the other stuff on the top shelves. Our shopkeepers didn’t have to go to a business school to learn that letting shoppers feel the wares gives them a sense of ownership and attachment that increases the probability of purchasing. This knack works on men, too, but most of them, when they see the wild boar, go for the kill.

Did someone say, ‘shop till you drop’? Our retailers don’t allow shoppers to drop any longer. After breaking a sweat on your evening walks on Pedestrian Plaza, you would’ve been hit occasionally by a cold gust from a showroom. That’s an invitation to hunt. Showrooms now have everything you need under a roof and, just when you feel tired, there’s the refreshment counter; and when you have bought everything you want and don’t want, there’s the vegetable counter – and some indoor plants to take home. At the doorsteps of most of these shops – occasionally a wailing child, too – with a pile of shopping bags that their woman companions keep adding to.

High or low GST, Nirmala Sitharaman can call this true ‘naari shakti’: Much of the credit for keeping our economy buoyant should go to our women. Here’s wishing all women happy shopping. And all men a happy Diwali.

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