Life has been pretty good and busy. Infact the goodness of being busy is better than life being good. Since I was very busy with work and some chores of my life, I have not gotten time to write down anything that had crossed my mind. But today my friend is right next to me, making me write a story. He said this story is a must share with the people in Sajha. Because this is not only our story but the mentality that had been engraved in the mindsets of the salesmen in Kathmandu for years.

When I was doing my Bachelors and one of my papers was marketing, we were taught not to judge our customers by their outlook, right away. Sometimes a rich guy can just walk into a store in his half pants and slippers. A lot of times you need to let your costumer speak  his demand or you ask a lot of questions to understand his requirement. There is another very big lesson that one of my uncles,who is a businessman told me once, “ When a customer comes to your shop to get oranges, and you don’t have those, make sure that you make him feel that apples are equally beneficial and can be a pretty good replacement for the citrus need”.

So, the story begins like this. Three friends i.e. my friend here who I will address as K, another friend who wanted to buy a mobile who will be called A and I, your faithfully went to New Road. Why New Road, is because from Pipolbot( Remember Photo Concern?) till the end of the road that goes to RB Complex ( that is old Purano Bhansar area) its full of mobiles and gadgets shops. There is this BIG gadget shop. The biggest in the entire lane, it’s in Tamrakar Complex, the name of the shop is Virgin mobiles (I have no freaking idea why it is named Virgin mobiles…..maybe because they sell mobiles which are Virgin?)

After a lot of discussion where to go, we decided to go to this shop, since K convinced A and me that this is a genuine shop.  So there were 4 different counts which apparently sell 4 different company mobiles. Since Mr. A wanted to buy Nokia X2, we went to the Nokia counter. A very uninterested girl was standing there. We asked her if she can show us that model. The first answer was,” khai malai taha bhayena, ma dai lai sodhchu”. I gave both of my friends WTF look, coz she doesn’t even know what all mobiles she got in her counter. Anyway, she signals this DUDE aka her dai ( yes coz I think he wants me to address him with that name) to come to this side. I don’t know the exact word in English but in Nepal we call this behavior “ Maskinu”. He was doing that with another lady in his side of the counter. So after couple of seconds, very uninterestingly getting up he started chatting on his fancy phone. Came this side, and K asked for that model we were looking for. Not even raising his eyes or head he just said CHAINA. Mr. A is a chilled guy, he said ok and started walking, K told me, “looks like he doesn’t want to sell any mobile and take it with him to hell” and For me I actually wanted to show this guy a middle finger and walk away but , I only said 2 lines, “ if this is the way these guys are doing business, I won’t be surprised they will shut down pretty soon and infact I want this place to shut down if they cant provide customer service”.

We all walked out of there. I wanted to go back and give some piece of my mind when A asked me to breathe in and out and chant OMMMMMMM. So I smiled and we all walked inside this huge mall. This is a super market for mobiles and laptops. So we were confused which one to go to. So smartly K, said” let’s do a random sampling, let me just walk into one”. So we started looking and on 5^th floor he walked inside a store alone.

After roughly 2-3 minutes, he comes out pretty pissed. Before I even ask anything, he counter asks me, Do I look like someone who doesn’t carry an expensive phone? I was totally surprised by his question but calmly replied, Bud! You are wearing Vans original, you smell CK, your tee shirt is John Player and you got Tissot watch on your wrist. If I was a salesman, my reading would be you have either Iphone or a Samsung in your pocket and even if all this was not there, I would have targeted to sell the best product to you. Why do you ask?

He explained that the guy in that shop didn’t even bother to get up and ask what he wants, after couple of seconds, when K asked him if they have X2,the salesman told him that they don’t sell camera. A bit agitated K said it’s a mobile phone, the guy in the counter again asked him if he wants a mobile with a camera, then my friend here, gave up and walked out after saying thank you!

Both of the guys in these shops were Nepali. If it was a marwadi guy in these shops, he would have showed us 10s of other mobile phones and would have confused us completely and convinced us that there are better option than this. He would have provided us with cold drinks, as it was a pretty hot day, or coffee in winters. Why are we Nepalis so laid back or least bothered? Why cant we have sales target? Why are we always so compromising? Is that why 7 out of 10 top businessmen of Nepal are Marwadis? Even the only billionaire of Nepal is a Marwadi family.( I am sorry but I don’t think they are Nepali in anyway, they reside in Nepal and most of their investments are in India or other countries, if their business collapse tomorrow, they will not lose anything but Nepali Economy will crash). I might sound very biased and a castist here but this is the truth. We Nepalis are too busy pulling each other’s legs where people from other countries are cashing out from here. We have tried really hard not to get pissed but hell these salesman are trained not for customer service but try our patiences.

Next time someone does this to me, I swear I will talk to the manager and believe me its not gonna be good!