Beyond my wallet

Khaleej Times - Opinion
(Issues) / 17 May 2012

The malls in Dubai don’t cease to amaze me even after all these years, not just for their grandeur, but also for the wisdom I gather every time I waltz through their aisles, wide-eyed and open mouthed. There is something very enticing about hanging around the malls, an activity that is boring to many and amounts to criminal waste of time and money.

Yes, it is a waste of time if you do it at a time when you should be home attending to your children’s homework or working out in the gym, not if you spend an empty weekend evening watching life play itself out in its myriad colours and forms, taking in the amusement it caters and just enjoying the diversion from the mundane. It is a waste of money if you step into the stores, more hazardous if an innocuous window shopping stint converts to a mindless buying spree of things you really don’t need, yet end up buying just because your wallet allows you to.

Now that’s my advantage. My wallet is so pathetically flaccid that I don’t step into most of the stores there, especially those that sell designer stuff. Actually that makes a visit to the luxury outlet completely risk free and allows me some vicarious joy. Yet I don’t, because behind my weak wallet is an acute middle class sensibility that clearly marks the places and things that are out of bounds for me.

Once, goaded by my sister who was on a visit, I walked into an international accessories store.  The store keeper was busy texting, his glance flitting between the phone and us. We walked around reading price tags and suppressing our reaction with great effort. Shock, surprise, self consciousness – all camouflaged by our fake conversion. And then, almost at the instant that my sister picked a bag, the sales person darted in, seized it from her hand and said curtly, “you cannot take it ,” as if we were just ‘taking it’.

We could see the derision in his face, a look that said that we didn’t belong in there. Or so it said, we felt.  Didn’t I tell you about our middle class sensibilities? 

“What if I really wanted to buy it?” my sister fumed as we sauntered out.

“Oh well, they can tell a serious buyer from an idle browser. They know that people like us are not wired to make that kind of spot, high value purchases.” I said wryly.

The incident made me reflect on how ceremonious high value purchases in middle class families like ours are. It follows a certain procedure and goes by the laid out rules of our household economy. We first sow a seed of desire, covet it for prolonged periods of time, visit the showrooms umpteen number of times, ask for the price, sigh and sough, set ourselves a target date by which to build up the capital by scrimping and saving,  and when we finally get there, make ourselves feel like royals. It’s a triumph that has no parallel. Then there is the other kind among us, the loan besotted sort.  Though perilous when done in excess, the sense of personal achievement one feels when the EMIs stop eating into the salary is indescribable.

Even now, when I see a rich shopper come out of a high end store, I imagine some day I will have the wherewithal and the mind set to do the same. I will be so well heeled that Rolex, Rado or a Prado, I might buy it in a trice. But then, I will miss revelling in the glory that comes at the end of an elaborate ceremony of accomplishing desires that the heart had coveted for long.  I will miss the unique sense of gratification that comes at the end of a long, arduous expedition to a dream destination.

Pappus Flower

I am suddenly feeling released from the branches of the tree, floating in the air like a pappus flower.

I feel the wind carrying me on its wings.

Sooner or later, I know, I'll stop drifting.

I'll alight, get attached to corporal things,

for I'm a mere pappus flower.

Until then, let me glide unconcerned in His infinite presence,
In the ethereal,

Oh, what a joy to know Him and nothing else !!

So, what's the price really?

Khaleej Times  - Opinion
(Issues) / 4 May 2012

I am not sure about the rest of the world, but we Indian women are super hagglers. Now my husband has a problem with the haggle word and wants me to say ‘super negotiators’. According to him, there is a ring of discredit to the haggle term, and being a procurement guy, he is sensitive to what I say about this bargain battle that we girls glibly indulge in.

Despite being a past master of bargaining, my man has always stayed away from it when it came to my personal purchases and I nurse a permanent grouse against him over this. Isn’t it sacrilegious that someone who strives and saves millions for his company should leave me to my own defenses when I am dying to save a few Dirhams on my dress, accessory or the curio in the Global Village? But I guess in our personal domain, we women have a cleverer way of getting the bargains out than men.

Often to the embarrassment of less intrepid souls, we employ this incorrigible habit lavishly to varying degrees of success on everyone from the salesman at the gold showroom to the vegetable vendors to real estate agents to even the dentist and the doctor. Seriously, I have asked my dentist in India for a discount on the bill because my husband was out of job at that time, tough times…so you know….

The tools we use vary widely - some are extremely weird and spontaneous that give unexpected results, others are old tricks that stand only half chances. In India, we ask for the price, raise an eyebrow exaggeratedly as if to say that I wasn’t buying a plot of land but a few bunches of spinach and then walk away feigning disinterest. Then the predictable call from behind would see us trotting back in suppressed glee. This trick however has run its course, and now if you walk away…you simply walk away. And then there is always the fear of getting fleeced should the vendor get wind of your Dubai back ground, so we are often very guarded in speech and manner. Hyper market bags from here can be big giveaways, mind you! 

Last month we had been to a gold store here which wasn’t Indian owned, but the moment the salesman began to speak, I grinned inwardly at the prospect. We Malayalis can sniff a Malabari bro from miles away. Some Mallu chat on monsoons and power cuts later, the making charge happily trotted down the scale. Tra-la-la! Fraternal feelings and a common lingo are, no doubt, handy trump cards to use.

Interestingly, there is perfect understanding on this between the shop keepers and the customers. They know about our fad for wrangling and we know that their price tags are inflated. So we both take no offence at the drama that unfolds before every purchase and go through the motions by default. Just that shopping becomes a bit too tedious with all the haggling and harangue.

I remember how a few months ago I confronted a salesperson at the Dragon Mart with a “What? So much? We India China poor people. No rich. We less money get, so, less money give.”

I have no clue if the bemused China man got through anything I said. But after a long battle in pidgin language I got the ware for half the quoted price. Quiet a victory, I gloated on my return home, to which my procurement man commented, “He still would have made some money. No one sells anything below cost, silly. After all, he is there to do business and not charity.” I was crushed to a pulp, but it also made me think about how skewed and suspicious the pricing structures in our market place are!

So what is the real worth of the things we buy?

Incidentally, a friend recently purchased a 15 million Rupee villa in India for 10 million! Down by a full five million rupees! “1.5 crore for fully furnished and one for unfurnished. We talked the builder down to it”, she explained.

“To that much? Wow!”

“Good buy?”

“Of course, of course.”                          

Now, let’s hear it for our sharp bargaining skills and their bogus price tags, folks!
Applause, applause