Target Vegetables!

I often wonder why customers always target the vegetables vendors for bargaining and saving a few cents. Maybe because it is of everyday use, but the savings, if any, hardly amount to anything. This is relevant for India where markets are mostly traditional.

That day I went to the market on a few errands. First I wanted to buy sweets for Diwali and went to the most famous shop of the locality. There was a huge crowd there and as I inched closer to the counter I saw one customer with a countenance oozing opulence really monopolizing it. He was buying a wide variety of sweets in big quantities. I decided to run away to another shop because of the fact that I wanted to buy just 250 grams of one variety!

After the customary purchase I went to the vegetable vendor for a few more items. As I was finishing the man oozing opulence approached the same vendor and started bargaining!

For an item priced 30 bucks a kilo he announced,’ I’ll give 20 bucks because I’ll buy two and half kilos!’ The vendor asked for 25 bucks. The customer announced his verdict again with a stamp of authority. I was instantly happy when the vendor refused! The opulent one moved towards his car maybe expecting a total recall! There was no calling back and I was ecstatic!

These vendors enjoy only a small margin because they have to buy stocks from the middlemen. Now, what do we gain depriving the poor people of their hard earned money?

If we need to save we need to look at some of other expenditures. Right?

Comments

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below: International: Click Here ! India: Click Here ! Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!