Not a Big Deal !!!

For starters, I suck at bargaining. I just CAN'T bargain. To make matters worse, I grew up shopping with a mom and sister who somehow thought that bargaining was the national pastime of India. So I've spent many a days hearing newly opened shop owners explaining it to my mom that she couldn't have been a "regular patron for years". My sister has taken the practice to an all new level where she applies psychological techniques to choose her victims. "This guy is young. So I'll try the whole sweet 'hey, I'm buying this with my pocket money' angle" vs. "This guy is older and looks like a lesser scumbag and so I'll call him 'bhaiya' angle" - Sissy has tried to teach me.

Obviously, being a male and fairly expressionless nullifies the appropriateness of either of these approaches for me. So occasionally I just try to sound authoritative and say, "No way. That's way too much!" and wait for some kind of magical discount to be offered. Sometimes this makes the situation even more tricky coz the dealer backfires with "How much are you willing to pay?" Now, if you're like me, you'll have no freaking idea to what a good price for the item is. I am in Bangalore for the 2nd year now & come December i wanted to buy a Santa Claus hat . The night before Christmas, I was roaming around on the bike with my wife when I spotted this guy selling these hats on the road. So I stopped and asked him, "How much for a hat?"

"Hundred rupees," the guy said.

"That's way too much," I feigned an authoritative tone.

"Aap kitna dengey (How much will you pay)?" he fired back.

Ahaaa! Exactly what I hate. Suddenly the seller and all the other customers were looking at me. From an unsure customer I had become the star of the show and I had to perform. I knew I had to say something and I knew I had to say it fast.

"Seventy five rupees," I finally said, putting on a "been there done that" expression on my face.

"Ok! Take it," the guy said without blinking.

What? Obviously I got duped. Nobody would have sold off a hat without putting up a fight if my quote had been remotely competitive. But I had no idea what an intelligent guess would've been. I'd never bought a Santa Hat for myself. So how was I supposed to know? I couldn't have just fired back with, "Nope! Won't pay you seventy five. How abt fifty then?" Everybody around us who were already convinced that I was idiot would then think that I wore a matching mask of stupidity as well.

As you can see, I haven't forgotten the incident till date ( Yes, the incident happened yesterday & well today is today. The date has changed since yesterday & hence its grammatically & politically correct to say ' that i havent forgotten the incident todate ). What is more scary is that I haven't learned anything from it either.

Does any kind soul reading this have any "quick tips" on the "art of bargaining"?

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Profundity at Work

This came up in a conversation sometime last week at office and shows my deep insightful philosophical side :)

"I don't mind doing anything new as long as you don't ask me to do something I haven't done before."