Shopping!

Now I'm sure I have your attention, and this post really is about shopping.  In fact in India, it's ALL about the shopping.  Every time you step outside the door you are bombarded with opportunities to part with your rupiahs, in exchange for goods and services as diverse as cycle rickshaw transport starting as low as 20 rupiahs to ceremonial goats upwards of 12 lakhs, plus butchering: that's more than the price of a small family sedan!  (As reported in The Times of India.)

Not being a fan of shopping, in fact on record as declaring, I don't like shopping, this is all way too much for me.  I'm really a 'power shopper'.  I am a big fan of online shopping: filter, select, pay, delivered ...  anonymous, no human interface.  When absolutely necessary, I will go to the mall.  I have a mission and a list.  I can go directly to the minimum number of shops, environment scan from the entrance, or at least one quick survey lap, zone in and buy, or turn and leave.  I do not ask for help.  I do not want to be crowded, followed, pestered, upsold, impulse marketed, or told, 'That really suits you.' Or 'No! You don't look fat in that.'

None of this works in India, and it's exhausting, confronting, aggressive, persistent, inconsistent, disrespectful, and seems everyone is profiteering and will get around to trying to sell you something.  Then there's the 'cheating'.  Locals rail at this behaviour and push back with a 'Don't trust anyone!' attitude.  The touts converge on 'the tourists' and there is no way of disguising our status as such, in a sea of homogenous black hair.  The intrusion into your personal space is startling and disorienting, giving them the advantage.  The opening offer is always devoid of any collection of facts, but simply designed to capture you.  For many tourists this may seem like a genuine and polite offer and they fall at the first gate.  For those with some form, the real game can begin. I'm somewhere in the middle.  I can go maybe a maximum of three plays before I just have to walk away.  Brian is a stayer, playing til the last hurdle ... for the sport of it or to make a point?

But for all of this shopping in India is often quite delightful.  You just have to work out who you are in this crazy frenzy of consumerism, learn some rules of the game, be prepared, take a deep breath and ... Good luck!

Along the way, we have collected some vignettes that illustrate the lessons shopping has brought us.

What's to eat?

Food is the ubiquitous challenge.  With street food, sometimes just working out what's food and what's a temple offering is hard enough.  Most vendors have only Hindi item lists.  Often they will give you some to try.  I think street food is for the experienced or the brave.  The rules are: Are there locals eating there?  Is it busy? Can you see the food being prepared?  Do you recognise it?

What have we ordered?

Surprise food in restaurants is not uncommon.  Our first experience was in Kesar de Dhaba, Amritsar, first night on the road.  In the middle of a late monsoon deluge, the cycle rickshaw deposited us at the 'restaurant'.  Well, at least the sign matched the name we were looking for.  We stepped over the stream which was the road, into the entrance of a concrete bunker.  Unsmiling men looked us up and down and pointed at the bench tables.  The door man turned on the fluorescent light above the table we selected.  The scary looking waiter pushed a tatty laminated 'menu' across the table to us and waited.

We chose a dish.  Some frowning and,  "Not available," was the response.

We chose another. "No."

He pointed, "This.  This."

"Okay."

Looks like the menu is just an indication.  Diners are given whatever is being cooked.  We waited in anticipation.  "I think we are having dal and stuffed paranthas."

Food comes out really quickly: dal fry (the one with a bonus ladle of ghee added at the end) and fresh hot tandoor paranthas, all on a talli.  The waiter identifies the dal, then picks of a parantha with one hand, scrunches it like a dish cloth and announces "Alu parantha!" Before we can even register surprise, he's grabbed the second one, "Gobi parantha!"

Oh my gosh ... they were good though!

‘Fixed price no tension.’

Phew. Thank goodness. Something that is what it is. We encountered these signs first in the Tibetan communities of Himachal Pradesh, but have found them in many places.  Even the fruit carts on the street sometimes display prices.  At the very least there is collusion in the market.  Combining that with the art of triangulation, polite but firm smile, and the right money ready to go, ensures that even me the white foreigner ma'am got her two bananas for the real, local price of Rs/ 10 not Rs/ 20 in Shimla.

This brings me to triangulation.

Getting three quotes was never more relevant.  Thinking about buying carved marble in Jaipur, I was encouraged by Brian, to take the initiative and play the first move.  This was a tough ask, as I'd been relentlessly hammered by touts, shopkeepers, beggars, lice and fleas in Agra, and lately in Jaipur.  We'd actually taken refuge in a side alley (See Rule 2 below.), which turned out to be marble carvers' alley.  Strike One: Rs/80000.  This seemed ridiculous to me, even with my only point of reference being the price of a similar sized piece of cast brass work Brian had bought.  I was done.  Did I really want to carry around an extra half a kilo in my backpack for the next two weeks anyway?  Brian steps up for the next pitch.  Strike Two: Rs/16000.  Still not in the ballpark.  One last try.  Strike Three: Rs/11000.  Who knows?  I didn't buy anything.

Mediating for meditation

Buying a meditation shawl in Manali had been a much softer experience.  All the Kula shawl shops seemed to be clustered together in the mall.  The shawls were the same in each shop; prices, patterns and wool-or-not mixes.  This is where I learned the shopping escape route, Rule 1: Ask for something they don't have.  Sounds easy and it does eventually work, after the insistent shopkeeper has pulled out a three deep counter full of items for inspection.  Feeling obliged and overwhelmed, I deployed Rule 2: Retreat down a side alley.  And these are the places you find the gems.  A dingy little store, with a makeshift rack out the front and numerous hand written signs, extolling all the 'Don’ts' in the shop: eating, drinking, loud noises, music, dancing ... ?  Weaving deeper into the store, all the shawls were hanging and priced.  Brian started playing the shopping game for himself, leaving me space to look.  Rule 3: Bring a decoy shopper.  And sure enough, there on the wall was my new meditation shawl.  Colour, pattern, price, overall experience - priceless.

Tea with the tailorman ...

In Shimla and bolstered by my shawl success, I employed Rule 2 and took the road less travelled, down some stairs to a rainbow of fabrics.  Searching through curtains of scarfs, and pillows of shalwahs, the tailor and I 'created' my version of Indian ladies' fashion.  All the while having a conversation about Mt Kailash, I think.  Eight steps to the right, and the machinist measured and nodded.  My 'suit' would be ready after lunch.  Taking Brian with me, we collected my purchase and an invitation to tea the next afternoon.  The man blessed my money.  Of course we had to keep out the date.  Barfi sweets in hand we arrived for tea, to a delighted tailor.  More conversation ensued regarding trekking, marriage and business, but the real reason I'd been led to The Rainbow Tailor: the gift of his secret masala tea spice mix.

Making change

It would appear that no one in India has change.  Strange when we have given them all our small money and they then baulk at the Rs/ 500 notes the ATMs spit out.  Some rationale for this is the rash of counterfeit notes reported to have been circulated, but when does the paranoia stop?  Add to this the almost worthless value of Rs/1's and 2's coins and we get this.

Buying the barfi sweets to take to our tailor tea date, I handed over a Rs/100 note.

"Do you have change?  Four rupiah?"

"Nahi." I'm onto this.  I want some change.

Result, I get my change; notes to the nearest Rs/5, and a chocolate, presumably the Rs/1.  Hmmm? Not sure about this one, but it made me smile.

As an addendum to 'Making Change', there we were at a cashier in a department store in Hyderabad. The attendant opens the register, and one of the coin compartments is filled with ... the Rs/1 chocolates!

Supermarkets as entertainment

Don't discount the supermarket as entertainment as well as a great social observation space.  As long as you can cope with the ratio of attendants to shoppers (about 3:1) and all of them falling over themselves to serve you, the supermarket, general store, bazaar, is a great learning environment.  We're still not sure about this one though.  Browsing in the manchester department, the instore announcement tempts us with a 'Second person for free Fish Massage' on Level 2.

Unique point of difference

So many bangles and temple offerings.  Whole streets of indistinguishable ladies' dress shops.  Numbered ski hire vendors on the side of the road, so you know which one to return the gear to?  One after the other of roadside dhabas with the same menu.  Carts piled with produce in perfect pyramids; never seeming to deplete.  How do any of them make any money?  Is it just the sheer number of consumers?  I don't know, but then one night we saw the banana seller on the corner was down to his last three bananas, so?

Don't stand still!

When stationary, you are an easy target ... an opportunity for anyone.  Even the monkeys have a niche market.  At Jakhu Peak, a 34 metre high statue of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god of strength, courage, wisdom and celibacy, and his temple, stand guard over the cliff city of Shimla. After a challenging climb unsuspecting visitors are relieved of their sunglasses and encouraged to part with 50 rupiahs for monkey food from a convenient vendor, who then does the deal with the monkey to swap the food for the stolen sunglasses.  Pavlov's 'Monkey' theory of behaviour.

And yes, it happened to Brian.