Onam Shopping

Onam- the harvest festival of Kerala is now in its full swing. Malayalees who take pride in their rich cultural heritage celebrate this festival with pomp and in full spirits. Its a vibrant festival of colours, joy and prosperity. Every malayalee makes grand arrangements to welcome the virtuous and legendary King Mahabali aka Maveli under whose reign Kerala witnessed its golden era.

Onam season is the peak time of consumer goods business in Kerala. Every manufacturer and retailer comes up with a variety of offers during this season. Right from vegetables to home appliances..... from cars and bikes to flats and apartments, every business tries all the tricks in the trade to woo the customer. In cochin, this onam season was marked by the offers made by two of the most popular retail brand shops for home appliances. The super star of this seson was LCD televisions. Both the shops advertised the price of 32" LCD TV to be starting from Rs 21K. This rekindled my desire (which I had rested long ago due to exorbitant prices) to buy an LCD television and surprise my parents when I get back home during Onam holidays. So I decided to visit both the shops to compare and buy the super star of this season.

In the first shop, I was welcomed by an corpulent guy dressed as the great Mahabali. His costumes and body shape were such that even the greatest enemy of Mahabali will drop his head in shame. As I was scorning at the looks of the caricature, the so called "traffic controller" of the shop gave me a cold look and he asked me to park my vehicle properly to avoid further hoo-hahs. Thats when I realized that I had blocked the way to the parking lot. It took me close to 20 minutes and 100% effort to find a place to park my vehicle.

I entered the huge showroom and was balled over by the size of the crowd which occupied every nook and corner of the huge floor. Before I could recover from my shock, I was brisked away by a sales person and he took me to the section where LCD TVs were displayed. He started giving me a lecture on the brands that were displayed on the stands. I asked him specifically for the brand that was available for 21K. But he continued with his script. Every 5 minutes I reminded him about the 21K product and he conveniently ignored my question by demoing the best TVs available. Soon I lost my temper and demanded him to show me the TV that was advertised. He tried to convince me that the particular TV does not have long life and that the sound quality is poor. I again demanded to see the model and when my pestering went beyond the limits he told me that the TV was out of stock. I asked him why it was advertised in that day's newspaper if there was no stock. He admitted that it was a trick to pull the crowd in. And at last I questioned him whether such a TV is available in the market at all. He smiled. That was it!!! I walked out of the showroom cursing myself for falling in for such advertisements!!!!

I never bothered to visit the other showroom at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And guess what..... I decided to watch all the Onam programmes on my old 21" CTV....!!!!!

Pic courtesy: Internet