An unkept promise

A year back this day, I set foot in Gurgaon for the first ever time in life. The sight that greeted me was impressive and intimidating all at once – a world class toll booth, a huge highway, architectural monstrosities (or beauties, for beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder), and absolutely no kirana stores.

To top it all, I could not set eyes on any kind of public transport other than cycle rickshaws.

That is when I decided – if there is anyone in this cursed town I should look up to with great compassion and kindness, that would be its cycle rickshaw drivers. In fact, I would promise myself every time I battled through the pothole ridden roads of Gurgaon that when I drove my own car, I would never ever honk or disturb the rickshaw wallahs ahead of me, unlike those “uncouth” other drivers. For, after all, the poor guys were literally heaving and hauling heavy weights around the place to earn their living!

However, memory is such a short-lived b**ch after all. And, don’t all of us suffer from selective amnesia?

The car came. Were I glad or what that my not-so-honeymoonish period with the rickshaws was finally over? I did religiously stick to my vows of never over taking anything on the road, including the infamous Gurgaon pigs. Oh, no, don’t jump to conclusions about my road discipline. I was just mortally scared of the roads and the driving and all the related paraphernalia.

Well, as is with all things practised and perfected, I slowly got used to the driving and the associated madness. And, without even my knowledge (or perhaps, in full cognizance and thoroughly enjoying the experience), those bad words started popping out. One here, one there. One more here, one more there. No one was spared of the profanity, though I mostly ended up swearing under my breath lest the more uncouth ones than I beat me up or worse still, run over me.

Today, my blood pressure goes thumping upwards when I see someone driving slowly on the road. I forget myself, I forget my “well-educated” status, I forget my unspoken assurances to those rickshaw drivers from my past. I honk and swear, I give them a belligerent look while I overtake them, and I accuse them of slowing down vehicular movement on the road.

Cars come at a price, monetary in most cases. Alas! Mine seems to have come at the price of my sophistication, well breeding and sensitivity.

Small wonder

Why does a dress look more attractive when someone else is wearing it than when it is in the store? Why do those set of curtains look so desirable hanging down my neighbor’s windows than while I actually ignored them in the curtain shop? Why do I always want that piece of jewel that my acquaintance is wearing even though I had scoffed at mom’s idea of buying it?

Such pertinent questions have never plagued my life, for I have found them to be natural occurrences.

However, it took me 25 long years and a short trip to Dilli Haat to understand what we fondly refer to as “human psychology”.

Dilli Haat itself is a quaint, colorful place, with much option for shopping, albeit a little pricey. As I know only too well that my shopping expeditions are of no interest to anyone here, I will move on without further ado.

In sync with its overall quaintness, the place had a quaint little shop selling many, many articles made of wood, not excluding lamp shades and well, some more lamp shades. Outside the shop were four cutesy little chairs, two on either side. My friends were adamant on perching atop them for a touristy picture. I obliged (by taking the picture that is).

In that split second between the posing and the clicking, our decision was made. Those chairs were coming home, not just via the picture. After a quick and very ineffective bargaining session, we secured two of them and settled down (not on the chairs) right opposite the shop to wait for a concert scheduled to start any moment then.

Little did we know the entertainment had already begun.

An aunty came up to me and asked, “How much did you get it for?” and promptly walked up to the shop afterwards. She was followed by many more “Auntyjis” and “Unclejis”. Those obscure chairs, which had been ignored till that very moment, had risen in importance and market value rapidly. The shop owner was rationing out the stock from his storehouse to create a pretty supply-demand mismatch picture. The prices were increasing rapidly, at the rate of 10% per minute. All of a sudden, those chairs had become the center of all attraction, just because their position had shifted from that side of the pathway to this, from the seller’s hands to the buyer’s.

That day, we learnt a thing or two, not only about human psychology but also about marketing effectiveness. It is not just enough to have a quaint little shop with some quaint items. Coax someone into it, pay them for it, do whatever it takes – just make sure a few people keep circling the area of your shop with some of your items and an air of just having bought them. If your products are unique enough, I bet you are going to be out of stock by end of day.

P.S. The incident compensated any unrequited yearning I might have had to become a ramp walk model. We were stared at and quizzed by all and sundry, in the station, on the metro and all along the way, till we put away those clever buys out of sight.

A vividly colorful life

What can be more detrimental to productivity in office than a dreary weather? To answer that question, I need to set some context first.

My childhood dream was to own a black sedan. Many sedans came and went, but my dream remained largely unfulfilled because Dad found it to be the craziest idea in town. “Whoever owns a black car?”, he tried to rationalize, with absolutely no logic to his observation.

In the same vein, it has also been my long time dream to own a pair of white trousers. Many trousers came and went but my dream remained unfulfilled due to numerous reasons, transport hassles being primary amongst them. However, as is the case with dreams that are pursued relentlessly, I recently laid my hands on such a dream pair.

And, life has not been the same again.

What does an innocent pair of white trousers have to do with work place productivity? Or, so you would be tempted to ask.

A pair of white trousers is as detrimental to productivity as a music system running at full blast next door when you are trying to concentrate on your board exam preparation. You are forever worried about coming in contact with any opaque surface, even mildly dusty. You are perennially concerned about that single drop of coffee or sauce or anything in any color other than plain (read water) on your person. You are paranoid about alighting from your car and walking those few steps across the patio to reach the lift lobby.

That is the cost you pay for dreaming big, or in my case white. And, all this while, I was thinking that having a car would solve the whitey problems of my life. Sigh!