Bargaining as we know it.

Category: Finance and Business. VERY serious. Entrepreneurial language - Level Max.


Welcome back to this oddly colored page, i like to call The Fence. Today we shall take our discussion to a highly unanticipated and most unnecessary facet of business transactions.

Bargaining.

Previously known as the mark of a successful trader, a tool used to get a person the maximum profit he could try to get. He could save MILLIONS if he could reduce the price he bought at for less than its CP(Cost Price), and sell it for a price more than it's SP(Sell price). It was a SKILL, something that no ordinary man possessed, something to handed down from generation to generation, like the Marwadis did, something which the Mallus never understood, and therefore were just called plain cheap, something which could not be learnt, which is why the Kannadigas dont own a decent business establishment which posts a decent/successful growth rate every quarter.


To have such a skill at your disposal was to be able to bargain with the English when they landed first at our beaches (Englishman: I come with gold, and silver and cool diamonds to buy what you have to sell. What can u offer me? Indian trader: Ka-ching! We have gobar, from which you can make gobar-gas and therefore save our planet from early extinction. We also have macchi which we caught just off the coast, normal to look at, but fried in our specially extracted refined oil , and lathered with our finest spices we offer you a dish which will leave you begging for more! and water costs 100 gold pieces only. We have wool... and so on, so forth.). Dumass East India Company people would have first finished their entire ration of water after eating two fish... their definition of spicy is beneath us. Their damn chili is sweet by our standards! And no more freshwater = lots and lotsa moola for us Indians.

They must have been pretty upset over their bad end of the bargain, and so they started taking over India, to take all that money back. Sore losers. Left us after stripping every last cowdie out of us... look who's laughing now foos! Give us more IT projects!


Sadly though, we no longer have that respect for bargaining, not us, the generation X/Y whoever. You should see my grandma, when the lemon-man brings the lemons home in the morning. She looks at it, crinkles nose and says "5 for 5". The lemon-guy goes all wide-eyed and says "You're mad! I payed 8 for 5, I have a wife, kids. Gimme 10! Think about me! I cant do this!", She tosses the lemons back at him and opens the door. He grumbles and takes the 5, gives 5. THAT'S BLOODY BRILLIANT! I decided to try that once. At my place, my usual lemon guy comes, looks at me, I crinkle nose and say "5 for 5", and he shows me the finger. Then he tells me to get my face checked, my nose looks unusually crinkly.

But I didnt give up... no no! Some other day, I went to buy sandals. Had to go for a trek, see. So one of my friends decided to good-naturedly tag along. Said he wanted to buy shoes or some such. So we go to this place, and we start looking. Pop! 2 seconds - his shoes are found and he's racing to the counter to pay and leave. Holding the plastic cover with his precious shoes, he's waiting for me to come with him. I am still not yet inside. Looking at the glass case outside, I'm all crinkly-nosed again. First there's admiration on his face, "Oh, this guy is a true connoisseur of shoes.". Twenty minutes later, he's just plain irritated. There he is, standing with a white plastic cover in one hand, looking like a fool right in the middle of the shop entrance, while I'm running around saying "No.. next... next.. yea, that one. Oh no, not good enough.". Finally I settle on something. Time for the price. He says 400 bucks. I laugh and say "You're joking! I'd most probably walk in goat-poo in that, I'm not paying 400, this is a bloody joke!" And add the crinkly nose for good effect.

It's amazing how quickly people show the finger and give you the most cynical expression.

And it's not just the shopkeeper. My friend and he are now "best friends", in sync. If actions were sound, they'd be bloody harmonizing. My friend is openly criticizing me "you dare bargain? what's wrong with you!" like I committed a frigging crime or something. "How cheap!" he goes on. Raving and ranting, on and on, for ages! At the end, I must have visited five shops with the same response. The last guy didnt show me the finger, my friend dragged me out before he could even react to that. I remember seeing a shocked face, slowly moving to rage, and a hand coming up with four fingers rolling inwards(technically, since i didn't see the final outcome, I didnt see "the finger").... then I was just turned around, and shoved out the door by my very-pissed friend. No longer good natured. Dumass.


Walked into a Nike showroom and asked how much? He said 4000. Why would anyone pay 4 grand?! He says Brand. My thoughts go back to that gay primitive cannibal . All he did was put a tick. And the clothes now go for 4k. On another he put three lines in parallel. That for 5k. AND NONE OF THEM CAN BE BARGAINED FOR. I look at the guy, crinkly nosed, unsure... "th-three.... k...?"

I dont want to talk about what came next.
I just wanted my granny there.


Bargaining... no longer the most-wanted-skill. The English might yet keep their money. Sigh!

Life and Fashion as we know it.

Category: Burst of thought.

Welcome to my blog, its got a new look. One that makes ABSOLUTELY no sense. I have no taste in color, style and combinations. And it shows! The blue-green combination that u see, leaves u disconcerted! Hell, it leaves ME disconcerted!! And i dont get disconcerted easily!

And you wonder. Man took to art like chicks take to credit cards. The basic science of color, should be inherent, people should know that black goes with gold , and white goes with blue. Pink goes with nothing, except hot chicks, but that isnt a color... i dont think it is. In fact, they go with anything, disconcerting to say the least....

And then comes fashion. This is some hoopla initiated by tailors i think. Lets really think about this. Long long ago, when some gay dood couldnt till the land, or craft weapons, and liked to play with dolls, he must have thought, hey! people need better leaves to wear! and would have gone about making his leaves into wearable shrubs. when people came to try it on, his heart would have known no bounds, when he would see people get into his shrubs, and feel happy about it. Now he had a valid reason to play with his dolls, tailoring subjects he would say.

After getting enough goats for his shrubs, or maybe fruits or eggs in barter, he might have sat down, counted his chickens, after they hatched, and made kababs. Life would have been BRILLIANT for a good while, but after his entire colony got the shrubs and rival gay people had their own shrub outlets, he would have run out of good meat. and fruits. Fruit runs out of fruit, not a good thing to happen!

So he would have been like, how can i get more fruits (in today's world, the word is money/business). And then, he would see the shrubs go pale brown, crumple and fall off, seeing how he made them in spring. So he would make the FALL collection, using pine cones and needles. Itchy and scratchy, but they last. He would have found some evergreen leaves, and made new thingies. And so began Spring and Fall collections. More goats, more fruits.

But competition has a way of catching up.... there is ALWAYS someone who cant get original, and likes to make money off other people's ideas. He calls it variety, we call it stealing. But this guy is brilliant... gay, but brilliant. So he finds a way of introducing brands. Says, you have nothing unless u have beech tree shrubs. comfortable, silky smooth and evergreen! Now, with added flowers to make u smell good, even if u do something bad and smelly, and yellow.

Time raged on, and the unknown gay tailor gave way to today's fashionista. Now THEY decide what color combos are good, what are not. THEY make clothes for people and charge them so much money for something they drew up a few days back. Something that a second standard kid could do. I mean, a hole here, a tear there, and its fashion now. Hell, its not clothes anymore that's fashionable... its NO CLOTHES that are fashionable. I m sure, someone ought there is thinking, one with nature and all, i m sure one with nature u sick psycho! Just want to see naked chicks everyday, dont you!

And so here i am, color combination less, brand less. I am back, to churn ur innards, and drive u mad.

Welcome back to my technicolor musings.