So the other day I was at my grandparents place and I happened to see my grandma shop for veggies. And watching her made me realise how much we love to bargain!
"Bhaiya itna zyada daam mat lagao! Pyaaz kharid rahe hai sona nahi!", said a lady who was buying onions from the seller. Despite the fact that the chap was clearly 10 years younger than the lady, he would still be "Bhaiya" for anyone from any age group(including my grandmother).
We consider it our birth right to bargain while buying anything so that we may save those 2 Rupees! We would argue with rickshaw wala as to why is he charging 10 rupees (Oh God! So much) for such a short distance and I've seen people actually settle down with 7 Rupees!
The bargaining goes on for any and everything we buy. "Kitne ka liya?" is the first question you hear if you are wearing a new dress. The shop keepers in the flea market have such experiences with people that they quote sky high prices for a flimsy T-shirt knowing that the customer is anyways going to bargain. And so when he says Rupees 500 for a shirt, we automatically quote our price as Rs 250 and after a heated battle for the best price we buy it for Rs 200, which by the way is the actual price of that T-shirt, but if the shopkeeper told us that in the beginning we would have tried to strike a deal at Rs 50!!! And this theory was told to me by a shopkeeper in The Sarojini Nagar Market!
Its not that I have a problem with bargaining, its just that I can never bargain much and always end up paying more and have to listen to everyone tell me that I've spent such sky high prices on something that's worth peanuts!(Tsk tsk!) So I usually take my cousin along with me who has the wonderful talent for bargaining! When with her, I can calmly find the best thing I want and let her do all the negotiations about money, and she has never ceased to surprise me by her skills!! She has helped me buy things at unbelievably low prices. and now that there's a wedding in the family, she has saved me from going broke!
She's my Guru in this field and I'm trying to improve these highly important skills of bargaining but till that happens, I happily watch the women buying veggies say "Bhaiya dhaniya aur daalo! Inti sabzi kharidi hai tumse! Aur sirf do mirchi daali hai! Aur do na!"
"Bhaiya itna zyada daam mat lagao! Pyaaz kharid rahe hai sona nahi!", said a lady who was buying onions from the seller. Despite the fact that the chap was clearly 10 years younger than the lady, he would still be "Bhaiya" for anyone from any age group(including my grandmother).
We consider it our birth right to bargain while buying anything so that we may save those 2 Rupees! We would argue with rickshaw wala as to why is he charging 10 rupees (Oh God! So much) for such a short distance and I've seen people actually settle down with 7 Rupees!
The bargaining goes on for any and everything we buy. "Kitne ka liya?" is the first question you hear if you are wearing a new dress. The shop keepers in the flea market have such experiences with people that they quote sky high prices for a flimsy T-shirt knowing that the customer is anyways going to bargain. And so when he says Rupees 500 for a shirt, we automatically quote our price as Rs 250 and after a heated battle for the best price we buy it for Rs 200, which by the way is the actual price of that T-shirt, but if the shopkeeper told us that in the beginning we would have tried to strike a deal at Rs 50!!! And this theory was told to me by a shopkeeper in The Sarojini Nagar Market!
Its not that I have a problem with bargaining, its just that I can never bargain much and always end up paying more and have to listen to everyone tell me that I've spent such sky high prices on something that's worth peanuts!(Tsk tsk!) So I usually take my cousin along with me who has the wonderful talent for bargaining! When with her, I can calmly find the best thing I want and let her do all the negotiations about money, and she has never ceased to surprise me by her skills!! She has helped me buy things at unbelievably low prices. and now that there's a wedding in the family, she has saved me from going broke!
She's my Guru in this field and I'm trying to improve these highly important skills of bargaining but till that happens, I happily watch the women buying veggies say "Bhaiya dhaniya aur daalo! Inti sabzi kharidi hai tumse! Aur sirf do mirchi daali hai! Aur do na!"
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| Photo Credits: Sonali Dalal |
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