First Law of Bargaining

One of the assumptions which people from the South carry when they come visiting Delhi is that nothing, practically, nothing is gotten without a tough bargain.  The most popular and unsolicited advice rendered by their friends to people going to Delhi is that they should bargain and quote a figure at least 50% of the price demanded by the vendors.  Experiences of their own visits to markets such as the ones at Karol Bagh, Sarojini Nagar and Chandini Chowk are recalled with relish; of how they purchased a Jacket for Rs.250 after a hard bargain when the vendor demanded Rs.600,  how  the price of a fancy lamp was brought down to Rs.1200 when the seller did not budge from his price of Rs.2500.  A visitor who did not get an article for less than 50% of the price demanded by the seller is considered to be an ‘innocent goose’ who is not well-versed in the ‘tricks of the trade’ or even worse, a ‘moron’ who is oblivious of the ‘wicked world’ out there in the open.

I realised how deep rooted this feeling is when a few relatives came to visit Delhi in the nineties.  After the customary ‘sight-seeing’ around the city and the equally compulsory trips to Agra and Jaipur, they set out to do the ‘purchase’.  Their heavily-accented Hindi spoken  was huge problem.  With this handicap, the game is lost even before its commencement!  The boys selling their wares aren’t Jesus ready to bear the bombardment of the  ‘Madrasis’.  They could track the origin of the buyers down to their villages just by a glance of their faces!  These boys would even speak half-dozen languages, Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali etc to woo the customers.

After a cursory glance at the market and gauging their size and articles staked, the visitors went for the kill.  A sweater for Rs.200, handbags for Rs.75, office bags for Rs.300 and the list went on and on, all bargained for half the prize!  When they were loaded to the full and could hardly lift them, I suggested that they travel by rickshaw to the nearest bus stop for our onward journey to Lawrence Road, where I stayed.  I followed them behind in my motor-bike.  At some point, there was traffic congestion, but the rickshaw could manage to squeeze through.  I was caught in the jam and lost track of them.  When I reached the nearest bus-stop, there was no trace of them.  After waiting for a while, I went back to the market to find out whether they lost their way.  Unable to find them, I came back to the bus-stop again.  This time, they congregated with their bags and bag gages, ready to pounce upon me for my indiscretion which kept them waiting for so long.  To relieve the dead-lock, I politely enquired what had really happened?  One of them said, they asked the rickshawallh to take them to Lawrence Road and unable find me there, they came back to Karol Bagh by the same rickshaw so that I do not become disturbed!

Remember this happened in the early nineties Delhi, before the mobile era.  After receiving an unconcealed jab at my ‘lack of devotion to duty’ (When we were at Bombay last time, Suresh always followed us like our shadows!), I gathered them for our onward march to Lawrence Road. Before proceeding, one of them boasted his ‘achievement’ on how he bargained with the rickshawallah.  After the back and forth journey to Lawrence road from Karol Bagh (a total distance of 15 kms), the rickshawallah demaned Rs.80, which my relative instantly reduced to Rs.40!  The lengthy negotiations failed to produce results, not quite unlike the Indo-Pak talks!  Again like Indo-Pak confabulations, one the parties, the rickshwallah walked out in anger refusing to accept Rs.40.

Now I became serious and realised the enormity of injustice caused to the poor rickshawallah.  I demanded a mark of identity of the rickshawallah so that I could trace him and pay the money demanded by him, which was quite reasonable.   I was told that he wore a ‘spectacle’.  I tried to locate him in two or three gatherings of rickshaw-pullers but could not find a rickshaw-puller with a spectacle. All of them said they had never seen a rickshawallah with a spectacle in their life-times!  I realised that probably the man was an ‘outsider’ who did not belong to this place.

A believer would have concluded that all this was an act of God - ‘Bhagwan ka Leela’ – the closest one could come to meeting God in person, God in the guise of a man who vanished into thin air!  To a rationalist, it was just a case of human folly and justice going upside down.  I was neither and I blamed it all on the inapplicability of the ‘first law of bargaining’ in all situations!