The 20 Rupee Misadventure

Do you have a friend who you can show the photograph of, if someone asks what a smart-ass means?

Symptoms of such a person might include

• getting himself (and you) into situations where you are inches away from getting your ass kicked - on a fairly regular basis,
• asking questions non-stop to the lecturer who is taking her first class ever, causing her to seriously consider other career options

among other things.  My guess is, you did. I did too - unfortunately, a few of these. But nobody comes close to perfection at this smart-ass thing as this friend of mine, lets just call him S.

This once, I remember the details only vaguely, but I think we were looking to have a good lunch having cut the classes to go to a movie or something. This was in Coimbatore when we were in college, me and S had already been going to school and college together for about 6 years then. I drive into a petrol station to fill up my motor bike. The guy finishes filling the tank, I pay and we are ready to go.

There was this salesman selling something to the guy in the next pump. He just finished up his sale, saw an opportunity to make another quick sale, and came to us before we would leave. For those who are not familiar with this situation, it is nothing new, it happens all the time in India. We have salespeople selling stuff everywhere. We don't get annoyed at this, in fact we get rather offended if the guy doesn't come over to us, because they only do that when they think you can't afford to buy their stuff.

Now, this guy is the super-exuberant salesman kind. I hated this kind. It is most difficult to decline a sale from one of these people. They are very convincing with whatever they are selling, and I end up buying something that I don't need or can't afford (there weren't really many things that we could afford then). I am sure he has used this technique many times before and he had the confidence of someone who knew it works.  But he had no idea how lucky he had been to be in the same city as S and to never sell him anything...

The salesperson starts by quickly explaining what he was selling, God-send for every biker, a cloth that is a cleaning cloth as well as a polishing cloth, at the same time.  Apparently it can be stored away very easily behind the vizor of the bike until you need it next time and so on...  

I am engrossed in the live demo of this amazing product, when S rudely interrupts by asking how much?  The salesman hadn't really been focussing on S, but replies just 20 rupees sir! and tries to continue with his presentation.  Now, 20 rupees is not a lot of money.  But we hadn't had our lunch yet, and we didn't have much more money than what we needed for that, and S knew that too.  When I was all set to excuse ourselves, and drive away, S says to the salesman, what? 20 rupees for a piece of cloth?  Thats far too much, I will take it if you give it to me for 10 rupees.  

Now it is normal to bargain with salespeople like this.  But to offer a price half of what he is selling for is a bit of stretch, even for S.  The salesman is happy that we are already discussing price, and says, its a very good cleaning material, very durable etc, and will sell it for the final price of 15 rupees.  S stays his ground.  Not a paisa more than 10 rupees, he says.  The salesman tries some more explaining, some more polishing of my bike and reduces the price to 12 rupees, saying that is his cost price, he can't reduce any more than that.  No deal, says S.  

After going back and forth for another 5 minutes, the salesman comes down at last to 10 rupees.  Ok sir, you have bargained for so long.  For you, I will give it for 10 rupees, he extends a fresh piece of cloth to him.  Now, S goes, but you said 12 rupees was your cost price.  Are you making a loss??  I was pretty sure, we would get into trouble if we stayed much longer, I want to leave, but S continues..  I am pretty sure you are making profit even out of 10 rupees, and you wanted to sell this piece of cloth for 20 rupees!  All I can think is, 'dude, seriously,  all this philosophy for 20 rupees ??'  

Now, the salesman is getting annoyed.  Not only are we not going to buy his product, we have also wasted about 10 minutes of his time, when he could have sold a couple of these things.  He grumbled something and turned around and started walking towards a new customer at the next pump.  As I am starting my bike, S calls the guy at the next pump and says pointing at the salesman, 'excuse me! he would try to sell that cloth for 20 rupees, but he just offered it to me for 10 rupees.  Don't get it for anything more!'.  

I wouldn't know if the guy would have tried to hit us, because I was driving as fast as I can out of the petrol station.