Sandstorm In A Teacup

I always wanted to walk into Dixon’s and ask a sales clerk “How much for the i-Pod?”

“£175, sir”

“I’ll give you £50”

I can just imagine the reaction as spotty Kevin tries to worm his way out of the situation. After all, why bother training your sales clerks in haggling when the English so meekly accept prices as they are? In fact, we’re terrible when it comes to prices, and as a result we get ripped off left, right and centre.

For example, LegoLand has re-opened near Windsor, and they’re charging £34 entrance. That’s thirty-four English pounds, folks – and they’re not even bloody EuroDisney. Take your family there and the day will end up costing you over £100. It would be easier to spend £20 on some lego, throw it around your living room and pretend you’re in LegoLand. It may even be more fun. But that’s rip-off Britain, and as usual, we do nothing about it. Even worse, the nonces who run Glastonbury have decided to charge people £150 to camp in a muddy field and listen to some rap “artist” that is apparently only audible to teenagers. I’d offer £20 and still expect them to give me change.

So here I was at Dilli Haat, a pleasant enclave housing regional crafts from all round India, from the traditional miniature paintings of Rajasthan to Ladakh rugs and Hyderabad pearls. It costs 15 rupees to get in, so you don’t get pestered by beggars and touts, although you do have to know how to haggle.

Shanaz’s sister Farah is the Queen of Negotiation. I bow down to her superior bartering skills, and I like to think that by the second time I visited Dilli Haat (with a wodge of rupees for present-buying), I had picked up a thing or two. Here’s a “best-practise” guide to getting what you think is the real price in India.

1. Casually browse through what is on offer, but with a look on your face that says “tch, I’ve seen this rubbish before”
2. See something you want and toss it aside as if it is covered in pooh, and ask for the price of something else.
3. Pretend that the quoted price has offended you greatly and return to what you want.
4. “What about this?” – and be ready with your sums here… Offer at most HALF of what you are quoted.
5. Remember that your price is probably closer to the real price than the one you were quoted – and if the seller refuses to budge, walk away. More often than not, he’ll shout back after you with your price.
6. If you’re feeling particularly mean, agree on a price, wait for the seller to bag it up, and then drop your price. You may be chased away with a broomstick, and you won’t feel good about it, but it’s worth a try.

I was feeling particularly well-disposed to the people at Dilli Haat, mostly because I wasn’t being followed around by people offering me a “very nice price”, and I ended up making good friends with some people from Udaipur, including one young artist from whom I bought three paintings. He and his friends appeared surprised that someone had bothered to visit their town, and even more surprised that I knew a little about the paintings, so I was quoted a price way below what I was prepared to offer.

The guy who sold me the traditional Rajasthani puppet was also from Udaipur, and I got him down from 800 rupees to 500 – and almost made him cry. Or at least, it appeared he was going to cry, but maybe that was just one of his cunning tactics to get another 50 rupees out of me. Still, after sealing the deal, he treated me to his photo album, full of shots of him breathing fire and dancing. At the same time. Very impressive.

However, one man who wasn’t going to make any money out of me was behind the sweets stall. Shanaz’s 8-year-old cousin Raina and I must have tasted everything he had, including one sweet that tasted vaguely of salted beef. I had the good manners not to spit it out, but the bad manners to scream “oh my God what have I ever done to you?” at the guy who then quoted me 300 rupees for one bag of mango sweets. Not a chance, mate.