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Journalism of Courage
Surat, April 27: It’s tough to consider oneself lucky and unfortunate simultaneously after running into someone or just missing him by a whisker. There is one species that can bring out such mixed bag of reactions: salesmen, that ubiquitous breed mushrooming everywhere.
You can’t tell many places where you are sure they won’t be found. Trains, railway stations, bus stops, public places, offices, housing societies they are just about everywhere. Togged up in a tie and formals, toiling away the whole day, they watch the world go by but can’t help force the pace.
Entering places where they are not supposed to, talking to people with a stiff upper lip, they have several hunting grounds, but not every foray ends on a happy note. Rejected and driven away more than often, putting up with humiliation and insult, they carry a whole gamut of experiences while ending their day.
Some appear as proud as a peacock; they approach you with a swagger in their gait but stick to you like a leech. No amount of shooing away helps for they get on like a house on fire. Making a brave attempt to ram down your throat what you will not buy even on your pay-day, they take everything with a pinch of salt.
It’s cold comfort to tell them that you will buy from them the next time, for not all can muster enough courage to scare away them. Who is going to buy a frying pan or for that matter any other kitchen wares at a work place. A wallet or a pair of socks is fine, but certainly not when you are lost in a wad of files or stuck in cyberspace.
Such trivialities, it seems, doesn’t bother those especially aggressive kind. They will walk into a grocery shop and attempt to sell a Webster’s dictionary or enter into a bank and sell world map. Who buys what, does not matter, as long as it is being purchased. But the logic does not always help. In a bid to meet their targets they are seen making friends with peons, at times taking peons for officers, and hang around till he has the time to attend to them.
They seem to have equanimity in abundance or how else would they put up with a group of persons laughing at them, or asking all sorts of questions only to declare that they forgot to bring their wallets today and would not mind buying things on credit.
Sometimes it is the other way round too. Seconds after someone had offered you a Webster’s dictionary for Rs 400 putting the original cost at Rs 800, his colleague walks in offering you the same for Rs 200. The more enterprising ones offer you excuses and “be rest assured this is the best bargain, no one is going to come in next and offer it for Rs 100.”
With cost of transport being what it is, not all of them can afford to have a vehicle. Hitch-hiking is not the only thing they have turned into a fine art. Sporting hopeful expressions and making an obvious attempt to look happy even in the most adverse situation is another art they have mastered.
Consider yourself unlucky if you ended up buying something you did not require and fortunate if your colleagues or boss were at the receiving end.
