WYSIWYDG

I am taking the train quiet often now a days and though its not as packed as the buses, they are equally diverse when it comes to people. As usual people were sitting all over the place and that includes places where there is 100% chance of getting trampled over. A lady was standing (hanging for dear life) with bulging bags full of groseries from a super market. What caught my attention was the way she was bargaining for a packet of brinjals. The old woman who was selling it was asking for 5 rs and this lady was saying it was too much for seven brinjals.

I took a peak at her bag ( I am mannerless) and had a tough time holding back my sarcastic tongue. This woman had gone out of her way to a super market, bought exactly 3 slices of tomatoes, a handful of jeera, a few mint leaves and chopped onion (roughly 2 days old i guess) all packed beautifully on a plastic tray with a celophene sheet (not edible and so not worth a single paise while buying vegitables) for 30 rs. But she is hagling with an old woman over garden fresh brinjals for 5 rs.

Many people I know personally shop in these super markets and feel good about it too. They won't mind buying chopped vegitables at least a day old for the price of a kilo of the same vegitable in much better condition in the local market. My own dad buys watery flavoured yoghurt for 20 rs, while we have an Avin outlet, down the street that sells thicker and rich yoghurt for 8 rs. What makes educated smart people believe that packed vegitables and perishable goods are fresh in shops that have warehouses out of the state?

This is the age of marketing, quiet often what you see is not what you get. The dress I buy for 300 in pondy bazar is a better imitation of a designer salwar, that eats a months paycheck. When I said this truth to a peer, she said "Oh, its not branded and besides Pondy Bazar is too crowded." That set me wondering, when buying a dress, isn't the dress more important than the crowd or label?

Its not only true in case of merchendises but also in the way we work and live. How many of us have gone to the quiet zoo at Vadalur or the museum at Egmore, where there are things to see and feel pleasent about for a sum less that 50 rs. How many times have we all rushed into amusement parks paying 500 rs for just jumping from ride to ride. You will get a better and more thrilling ride if you take the guindy road ina share auto or bus.

In my own work, the quality of the content I write is not dependent on how effective the material was but on how many errors that were there. My collegues and I discovered that the best way to improve quality in such a set up is to write as less as possible. The less you write the less mistakes you can make. Logical isn't it?

Anyway, I got to buy lady's finger today, I hope I am lucky enough to catch up with the old woman in the train.