The new age rituals of buying and selling
The closest I ever came to feeling like Indian tennis star Leander Paes was when I bought my new car. Apparently, the terms and conditions did not permit me to simply drive the vehicle home. In a post sale ritual performed in the portico of the car agency, an oversized imitation key was handed over to me as though it were a grand slam trophy while the staff members of the car agency applauded and took photographs, trying their best to make me feel like a winner in a prize distribution ceremony.
Actually, the new age buying and selling is lot more than a simple give and take of cash and goods. For instance, every visit to the neighbourhood departmental store ends with a mandatory catechism with the billing executive on the sales counter. “Mobile number please” is usually the first question. After my perfunctory compliance, I am asked to register feedback by pressing a button on an electronic scale displaying options ranging from “very good” to “very bad”.
If I have bought a trendy T-shirt on discounted price, it’s easy to decide, but when I have shopped for the weekly ration of potatoes, onions, bananas and a bunch of coriander leaves, I do not exactly know whether I am elated or dispirited. After feedback, I am asked for my membership card. As I replace the membership card in my wallet, I brace myself for a barrage of messages and mails about loyalty credits and reward points, combo offers, buy one get one free schemes besides “we are missing u” messages if I have been absent for long.
Sometimes, when I receive address confirmation calls for the delivery of pizzas and burgers ordered by my children or otherwise see them tracking the delivery of their articles ordered from online stores, I am transported back to my childhood and reminded of a man called Bant who ran a shop at the corner of the street where we lived. Afterschool forays to his shop were like visits to wonderland for the children of the entire neighbourhood. There used to be what looked like God’s plenty — small and big glass jars containing sugar coated candies and lollypops, “churan” and tamarind balls, treacle toffees, salted tubes of poppadom and packets of tit bits. Bant would spend his day going to and fro between the jars and the threshold of his shop taking coins with one hand and dispensing the ingredients of the jars with the other. Unlike us, children today have access to a virtual cornucopia of merchandise on internet sites which can be ordered with the click of a button.
I got the taste of another brand of buying and selling last Sunday when a little known acquaintance caught me in a honey trap. This gentleman called on the phone and told me that he wanted me to meet someone very special who could change my life in a big way. The whole affair proved to be a carefully planned sales ambush as the gentleman’s friend turned out to be someone linked with network marketing. I felt short-changed as I had to sit straitjacketed for almost an hour listening to his spiel on the merits of the line of lifestyle and cosmetic products he promoted. Coincidentally, as soon as the gentleman and his friend left, I received a call from a telecaller who wanted to educate me about a free accident insurance. Feeling a bit frazzled after the prolix session, I said: “Sir, I don’t think we need one now. I was married some fifteen years back and my wife has still not recovered.” The poor joke was enough as the executive hung up feeling confused. Wordsworth’s famous lines were certainly ahead of his time: “The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending we lay waste our powers”.
UNLIKE US, CHILDREN TODAY HAVE ACCESS TO A VIRTUAL CORNUCOPIA OF MERCHANDISE ON INTERNET SITES WHICH CAN BE ORDERED WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON