Weekend Special: Think before you bargain

By Sheena Shafia

"Guess how much?" My friend was holding up three cotton pyjamas with elasticised waists.

I took a closer look. The fabric was clean, good cotton, mercerised, not the kind that would wrinkle, run or shrink at the first wash.

"A 100 each," I guessed. I knew women sold maxis and kaftans on the trains and also knew they came for a bit less than a 100 each if you bought more than one.
"150 for 3," my friend chortled!

The bargain hunter in me perked up. Wow, I said, that's a steal. These are never say die clothes, and will last you till you get sick of them. How could the woman afford it?
My friend pulled a face. "Actually, I bought them from someone who came to my office," she said. "I was sitting with a friend having lunch and the man walked in carrying a bundle full of these."


"He was offering them for 100 each, but my friend jumped in and told him that if he gave them cheaper, she could help him sell a dozen. He demurred and bargained, but she went off to get her colleagues, and soon he was lighter by exactly a dozen."

"I think the thought that he had less to carry back made him come down dramatically in price, and we were smiling broadly when he tied up his cloth bundle again, hoisted it on his shoulder and turned to leave, the money safely folded away in an inside pocket."
"But," my friend added, "I later began to feel quite guilty."

Why, I asked, wondering what her qualms were about.

"Well," she answered. "I began to feel we had exploited him."

That was a sobering thought. I pictured the man, walking door to door, being rudely rebuked at some, grudgingly allowed through others, before being allowed to open his bundle and display his goods. I thought of the hard bargaining that must precede every sale, and sometimes force him to turn down an offer that was really not worth his while.
I thought of the hot summer day outside and the hard, uneven sidewalks and I felt yes, my friend was right.

I thought too, perhaps, thanks to the many Hindi films I have seen, of a wife or a mother sitting coughing at her machine, through the nights, after a full day's chores, as she cut and stitched the pyjamas that girls like my friend would spend the day lounging in as they watched television.

Or maybe he was an educated, jobless man, who worked at creating these clothes himself, while waiting for a break to find the job he really wanted to do. It is strange, I mused that we fight for every rupee with the bhaji walla, the fruit seller, and others selling things that will get a rupee or two of profit, but think nothing of paying four times for something that we consider an experience.

Restaurants, for example charge five times the cost of the food we eat if it was made at home, but we will spend on an evening the entire sum of our cook's salary and tip the waiter and thank the doorman while never thinking of raising her wages or acknowledging her labour. Or bargaining over the bill.

The money we save by short changing someone who needs to sell does not make a difference in our lives. Bargaining is just a habit we have under our skin, and every rupee won makes us happy.

It would not if we thought of what the money might have meant for the one who lost to our bargain.