I never like paying more than the product or service is worth. I have walked kilometers and kilometers just because the auto driver wanted more than the actual charge. I have refused to buy many clothes and food items just because the vendor was charging me very high for a product that was not worth that much.
Some months back I argued with a bus conductor who would not give me a proper ticket for my destination but instead just charged me half charge without a ticket. I was furious I created a racket inside the bus and insisted that the conductor take the full charge and give me the ticket. Conductor gave up on me and ultimately gave me the ticket. I was so happy at my civilized and responsible behaviour.!!
Yesterday, the same situation in another bus. This time maybe even a bit more serious in the sense that the conductor just took the full charge for the travel but did not give me a ticket. I would have let my good citizen mask take over and would have insisted on the ticket. But hey why did I just give the money and walk away to my seat without the ticket.? That is not the first time that I did it in the past few months. Have I lost my guts to fight against injustice?
There are ways of doing things and each one of us has different of these. What we do should be driven by our conviction and righteousness. But most of the times what we do is based out of instincts. There are a sizeable number of people who are more prone to act out of an instinctive feeling rather than a proper ‘pros & cons’ analysis. I often have told many of my friends, that I am more of an instinctive person than logical. I do many crazy things that are quite unexplainable to many. I am not saying I am a minority, because I know that there are many who will be taking many of their decisions out of their instincts/intuition.
That was just the introduction to set the background.
I used to take pride in the fact that I bargain and save on my father’s hard earned money. That is when I happened to be traveling back to Hyderabad from Karimnagar with Preetham Kulkarni.. That was the first time when we both had had a long chat with each other on many personal things. He told me many things about true love, spirituality and social behaviour. I agreed to many of his beliefs and disagreed with many. That’s how a healthy discussion goes, right? Now there is one particular belief that he put across to me and I was blown away by it. He told me that he never bargains with any vendor. He goes to buy the vegetable and other groceries for their house and never even questions the prices of these. His mother used to chide him on this and he used to say a simple point to make her silent – “Do we bargain when we are giving hundreds of rupees more to the fancy shop of branded goods? Then why bargain and deprive the poor vendor of those 2 rupees more? “
Super argument, isn’t it readers? I was shaken from inside and felt a deep surge of guilt and shame. I realized how hypocritical my behaviour was. That changed my outlook towards all the small transactions that we undertake in our daily life.
We all have bargained with vendors at some point of time, right? Yes I feel. Anyways, why do we do that ? To save a few rupees of our hard earned money. Right? We feel that the vendor is cheating us and unnecessarily robbing us of our sweat and blood. We all want to somehow feel that we are actually giving value to the efforts that we or our parents have put in, to earn that few rupees. We want to show to others how good a bargain hunter we are and how we give importance to every single rupee that we would not allow anybody to rob us. All correct !!!
Now, tell me do we all not go to branded outlets to buy clothes, accessories, luxury goods, restaurants etc ? What do we do there when we are paying the same hard earned money? Do we bargain like we do with those poor vendors on the roadside or at the local market? No would be the most common answer. Why? Because we do not want to give the branded retail outlet personnel or the fellow shoppers that we are “cheap” and down market!! We think that we are not supposed to bargain in such big shops as they put such high prices in order to make up for the luxury and opulence that they are dishing out for us. Maybe true. I am not refuting the fact that we should not bargain in these big shops. All I am saying is that why this difference?
Why do we take pride in depriving the poor soul -starved for 3 full meals for himself and his family – of the 2 rupees or 20 rupees? What harm will it bring upon us even if we do spend that ten or twenty rupees more on the weekly veggies or the night pants? We pay 100% to even 800% more to get our branded stuff from fancy retail outlets. At that moment do we ever think of the hard earned money, the sweat and blood and such crap? No. We feel proud that we are part of the elite club that constitutes a minority of this country that has the privilege of actually buying such “superior” goods.
The extra ten rupees gained by the vegetable vendor or the roadside tea seller will not improve his life drastically but will give him that extra freedom to not feel utterly helpless when his produce goes bad due to some cow eating his veggies or some glass falling down and his tea being wasted. Do we really need to feel victorious at depriving the poor fellow of his one extra roti? Think about it dears. I thought about it and feel this:
Sometimes there are some instances when you just need to let the heart do the talking. And these are the times when you should not let some blanket ideology guide you. I feel much better these days… feel less agitated at the small inconveniences and “injustices” happening to me. I know I have found my peace with pettiness and hypocrisy and all credit goes to Preetham.
Today morning I bought the newspaper from a roadside vendor boy. The Sunday Express and the Sunday Times cost me Rs. 9.5 but the vendor just pocketed my 10 rupee note and carried on his business. I quizzed him about the cost and he shrugged his shoulders that he did not have change. I laughed and patted him on his back and walked off feeling like on the top of the world – I walked off – a man full of love for his woman, a man realizing his love out of helping others live a better life, a man trying to make up for his loss by not making others lose their love for lack of some coins in their pockets.
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