Marketing

My friend, who is the charge of the house, asked me to buy sausages and parottas for the evening celebration.  Since I was free and in a mood of doing something, I agreed with his proposal. I took the bike and went to the shop near the railway station, asked the shop keeper to give me sausage. He opened the fridge and gave me a packet of chicken sausage. I told him that chicken sausage is good but pork sausage is the best, so give me the best. The shop keeper told me that in Bhubaneswar pork sausage is not a favored item. I told him, “Listen gentleman, a good business man is the one who sells what is not liked by the people. If you sell what is preferred then you just react to the situation. You must learn to create demand, that is the real challenge, and that alone will give you the job satisfaction. So start selling what is not favored by the local people”. He looked at me in total confusion, and I left him to give some time for the reflection.

Then I went to the mall named ‘The world’. There I wanted to buy parottas. I asked for the ashwini parottas, but the helper said that onion paratottas are the best and that is available. Since she was trying to sell me what I did not want, I could not come with any argument. After few minutes, I told her, “I think that you are not familiar with Indian tradition, in India we divide food items into three categories: sattvic food which are good and filled with positive energy, rajasic food are neutral food which neither good nor bad, and tamasic food which are filled with negative energy. Onion comes under tamasic food, which means onion parottas are filled with negative energies and you are irresponsibly promoting negative energy which means that you are a dangerous person”. I thought that she would get angry and scold me, but she was just smiling. I did not know what else to say, I was feeling guilty that I have offended a good soul, who is truly enlightened.  It is then I realized that she does not understand English, but she was fluent in Oriya and Hindi.

As I was leaving, a girl stopped me saying it is a promotional item, and she showed me chicken kawaap and many other chicken items. I told her that I do not like chicken. She said, “You do not like chicken, no problem, but I am sure you would like chicken tandoori, it is so tasty”. I said that listen girl, I am allergic to birds literally and figuratively, if you have anything other than chicken items for example fish, mutton or even snake and dog, I will be happy to give it a try. Hearing the words snakes and dogs, she could not say anything more, and I took that opportunity and left the place.

Then I went to the reliance food. Though I am basically very skeptic about reliance, since I did not have any more choice, I settled for it. As I expected their mall had all brands that were not familiar to me, and what I wanted was not kept there. I just cursed Dhirubhai Ambani and his vision then left the place without talking to anyone.

I went for the marketing with the empty bag, and I returned with the empty bag. And it resembled the human existence. When my friend asked me about what I have brought, I told him that nothing is worth buying in Bhubaneswar, I am going to Mumbai tomorrow and I will get all things from there. But he refused to believe me, he concluded that as usual I have forgotten the real business and wailed away time in side business.