It is all your fault Kirpalani's (standard:travel stories, 1194 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Jul 14 2013	Views/Reads: 3421/1986	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Juggernaut'f friend Belal got into a jam for dating a woman from the department store Kirpalani's in Trinidad.

It is all Your Fault Kirpalani's 

Subba Rao 

In early 70's, department stores like Woolworths and 

Kirpalani's were very popular in Trinidad.  Woolworths was like Target 

store and Kirpalani's like Kmart in the United States. Kirpalani's was 

owned and operated by a clever Indian entrepreneur whereas Woolworth 

was an international brand store.  Near the university campus, the 

Woolworth and Kirpalani's were side by side competing for two 

different kinds of consumers. People with means shopped at Woolworths 

and Kirpalani's customers were working class. Most of the goods at 

Kirpalani's were imported from India and China, and Woolworth sold 

stuff from England and the United States. The sales girls at Woolworth 

were urbane and mostly fair skinned and East Indian women and older 

black women worked at Kirpalani's. The Indian sales women from Caroni 

were down to earth house-wife type; they advised the customers on 

everything from selecting the right underwear to pots and pans. 

It was a regular routine for Belal, Juggernaut's room-mate to 

visit both the Woolworths and Kirpalani's not to shop but to check out 

the sales girls. He went straight to magazine section in the stores 

like going to campus library to read magazines and paperbacks, some 

cover to cover. Then he would strike a conversation with sales girls 

asking questions on products he has no intention of buying. The sales 

staff familiar with Belal's visits ignored him as a regular trying to 

get a date with them.  The manager of Woolworths, a man from Britain 

warned Belal on occasions not to bother his staff with his silly 

questions.  Belal was so mad he invoked a special Bangladeshi curse on 

the manager for his downfall; few weeks from that incident, 

mysteriously the manager was fired and sent home to England. Not long 

after, Woolworth's filed for bankruptcy. 

“Man, you don't believe what happened yesterday at 

Kirpalani's,” Belal came running to Juggernaut working in the lab. 

“What happened?” Juggernaut thought perhaps Belal was thrown 

out of the Kirpalani's as well. 

“A sales woman at Kirpalani's agreed to go out with me this 

weekend, I made it, I made it at last,” Belal was all excited. 

“I am happy for you, was she from Caroni?” Juggernaut was 

still conducting the experiment while talking to Belal. 

“She is Indian, kind of matured looking; I did not ask where 


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