for the weekend, so I went and bought those books last night.<\/p>\n
Almost committed a social faux pas<\/i> with the MR book stall guy. He normally prices books very high, and is quite happy (I think!) to give me a 20% discount on whatever I buy. And yesterday, me and sasi go there – and to my surprise, he refuses to lower the price by anything more than 10 rupees.<\/p>\n
“This is unfair”, I say. “I thought you would give this to me for less!”<\/p>\n
“Arrey, sir, you won’t find these books anywhere else. This is the best<\/i> price I can offer you.”
\n“No, no, no<\/i>!”
\n“Yes, yes, yes<\/i>!”<\/p>\n
and so on and forth.<\/p>\n
And the problem was, those books were really<\/i> good. Top of it, I saw something else on the shelves. The Tintin Companion<\/i> by Michael Farr, one of the best books ever written on comics, or so the legends say. And it was priced (in terms of Market Price) very decently – 650 rupees. The book sells in Walden for 1395. So I ask him, “How much would you sell that<\/i> for?” , with just the right amount of nonchalance. Meantime, I am trying hard not to pant with lust. He says he can lower the price by 50 rupees, not more. It was getting to be a frustrating deal. And all the time, the guy was saying things like, “Take them. Take them. You can pay me later, and if you don’t like them, you can return them, no problem.” That’s the usual modus operandi<\/i> to get me to buy books even when I don’t have the money. That guy knows a junkie when he sees one. He has seen me for the past…four years.<\/p>\n
So I got frustrated and angry. There were other customers waiting. Sasi was getting restive too, we had two more places to go, to get cds and check out some more books. Gave him 500 rupees, as a deposit and took everything I wanted.<\/p>\n
Right.<\/p>\n
a vcd-buying spree, then a trip to the MR stall at Abids ( the other one, the one I went to first, is at Panjagutta), and suddenly we realise that we left some cds back at the Panjagutta stall. Called him up, and said we were coming by.<\/p>\n
We reached the stall again, and just as we got the cds, this guy smiles and gives me a consolidated bill of how much I have to pay. I note, with surprise, that he has priced them with quite good discounts, even though he was saying<\/i> otherwise. <\/p>\n
And then it hit me. <\/p>\n
There were other<\/i> customers around then! Poor chap, had I persisted, most likely the other people would also have asked him for discounts, and of course, he can’t say things like “beatzo is a privileged customer.” and he would have lost out on a lot of sales. <\/p>\n
Sometimes I tend to think the worst about other people. I tend to think too much on my<\/i> terms and my<\/i> perspective. That has to change, really.<\/p>\n
So finally, the books I bought:-<\/p>\n
1) The Tintin Companion – Michael Farr.<\/a>
\n2) Fantasy Masterworks:Elric of Melnibone – Michael Moorcock<\/a>.
\n3) The DreamThief’s Daughter:A Tale of the Albino – Michael Moorcock.<\/a>
\n4) The Complete Guide To Middle Earth – Robert Foster<\/a>
\n5) The Mammoth book of new Sherlock Holmes Adventures.<\/a><\/p>\n