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Smooth talk that sells
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As the bell rings insistently you wonder who the demanding visitor could be. You hurry to the door... Imagine your anger when you see the smiling visage of a salesman with a hard-to-resist offer!
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I have always been wary of them — the members of a tribe that is growing at an alarming pace and can be seen moving through the streets of Chennai mostly in groups.
They know no etiquette and generally come unannounced, especially in the afternoons when you have stretched out or curled up (as the season may demand) for your afternoon siesta. The bell rings insistently and as you wonder who the demanding visitor could be and if you need to answer the door at all, the bell rings again and your introspection ends and you hurry to the door.
Imagine your anger when you see the smiling visage of a salesman with a hard-to-resist offer (or so he thinks). If your expression could kill, the poor man would never trouble another soul again. But there he is at his ingratiating best, not a wee bit discouraged by your expression, listing out the advantages of the product he is promoting.
The gist of what he has to say is that the company is making an introductory offer and that you cannot hope to get the same product at the same price in shops and that if you were not a total moron, you would grab this opportunity the company was favouring you with.
That invariably sets me thinking. Maybe I would find some use for the items offered or at worst, I could gift them to someone who could use them. After all, people don't look a gift-horse in the mouth — to assess its value or utility.
While this thought flits across my mind, the astute salesman has sensed a thawing in my mood and takes advantage of it. Before I realise it, the product is in my hand while he is waiting cheerfully, to be paid. It is now too late to turn him away. He has won and I have lost.
I decide not to be taken in by these smart salespersons anymore. I promise myself I shall not give them a chance even to introduce their product. I shall shut the door on their face without any sympathy whatsoever.
My determination worked and I found myself less and less with redundant items cluttering up the space on my kitchen racks and cupboards... till a day before Deepavali this year. The doorbell rang and this time, I was awake as I was trying out a new recipe for the festival. I opened the door and there was yet another of my "friends". He said he had come with Deepavali gift offers... absolutely free. He handed over an attractively packaged set of a dozen spoons and forks and said it was absolutely free. I raised an eyebrow as much as to tell him, "Do you think I am so green? Now tell me where is the catch?" But he continued to smile as he handed over three more attractive gifts "absolutely free".
Now as I tried to keep my cynical smile from fading away, my heart started beating just a bit faster. "Could all this really be free?", I wondered. I saw the man pull out one more packet and say, "All you have to pay for is this". It was a pack of four stainless steel ladles.
Without hesitation I paid for it and returned to my kitchen with the `booty". I laid it out on the kitchen top to feast my eyes on it: three knives with ill-finished, uncomfortable handles, four wafer-thin stainless steel ladles, half-a-dozen forks, a dozen spoons that were sure to add to the clutter on the cutlery rack, a plastic all-purpose scraper (I already possessed one), a tin-opener and a bottle opener of stainless steel. The last two were the only items I really needed. So I had paid Rs. 300 for them. All in the Deepavali spirit. Should I make any more resolutions?
HANIFA GHOSH
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