Generally when I go out on the street I first form a battle plan. No brilliant battleship-sinking maneuvers usually just A --> B then rickshaw to C where I might be able to find that, but I can definitely find it at D and just in case I should buy a paper since Mr. X will probably not be at E until an hour past ____. Without some sort of map, I get lost and turned and before I know it I am yelling at young boys that staring is rude and I come home defeated, drinking badam and frantically drafting a more clever plan for the following day.
So, a few days back, my plan was this. 1. Return the juicer I randomly bought on the sage advice from a friend that 'what was I going to do with a 40 lb juicer in five months". 2. buy pens and pencils and, if fortune smiled on me, some 4 by 6 notecards 3. get a newspaper ... after this the list grew vague. From experience I know that getting beyond 3 in a single day is not possible and so I resolved to keep 4 open in case I needed a tall glass of badam.
First I bought the paper, out of order, but it went smoothly. Then I went to return the juicer. The juicer that had never been opened. The juicer that had only been purchased 7 days back. The juicer that was identical to the one sitting in the window of the fancy kitchenware store...
The manager was sitting at a desk and spoke to me with a effervescent smiled, "Sorry madam, no returns. But you can exchange it for something else." His smile was so large that I took it as a joke, so I returned with, 'No, sir I don't need anything in the store, just my money back." The exchange continued for a little while as he swept his arms indicating the saber-toothed knives and Narcissus-inticing pots and pans. "You see, sir," I said, "I don't live here permanently and I stupidly thought a juicer was a good idea. It was a mistake and I am trying to remedy it." With that I opened myself up to the attack that still has teeth enough to work on me. "Madam, this is not like where you may be from. In India, you cannot return things. Never. Nowhere." And I wanted to explain that this was not a snobby view of a girl from a Western world, but a logical and and judicious and profitable for all economic policy. I started to explain, but he kept smiling. So, I did what I have seen my Indian friends do when something makes no sense: I sat and I looked down as if I was pulling the intelligence and understanding inside me up to the surface. "Well, what to do..."
In the end, I returned the juicer. No one was harmed. And the man still had a smile on his face when I left, though this time it seemed strangely genuine. ***
Feeling slightly invigorated from having completed task 2, I went straight for number 3. Pencils and pens are located on the third floor of a shopping megamall near my apartment. Now, sometimes in India I run into similar patterns from Russia. Magemalls are one, and I think simply a bi-product of quick and volcanic commercialization. Another is the creative way both countries have implemented of moving their citizens around. Buses and subways are not enough, Russia prefers small densely- packed used minivans, while India as adapted the auto-rickshaw into a sort of metropolitan school bus. So, as the man at the counter was ringing up my school supplies, I noticed that the coin trays were filled not with rupees and paisa but chocolate candies. Hundreds of golden-wrapped 'Chocolate Eclair' candies. I thought of fighting or frantically rooting through my purse for the exact correct change. In Russia, I had fought and even attempted to pay for things in chocolate candies or mints, and I will admit that I felt a certain satisfaction at having mastered a new game. But this time, I decided not to fight, and happy that my battle plan hadn't been thoroughly washed out, walked home, my wallet puffed with Chocolate Eclairs.
*** I have since looked up "return policies in India" and the internet is strangely silent on the issue. The only thing I could find was a Dell page that ok'ed returns, even on the subcontinent.
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