The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

I have been wondering how to pick up the threads on this blog and today I got spurred by my shopping experience in Gurgaon.

In search of tea-bags and butter, I found myself at a store called Reliance Super in one of the many giant market complexes that dot the central area of Gurgaon. In Gurgaon, the term is mall. And it has to be pronounced as moll, as in gangster’s moll!

Call me biased if you wish to, but the thambis of Chennai are far quicker, squirm less when you seek assistance and run an amazingly well coordinated operation, whether it is a restaurant or any other store. The chokras of Mumbai are fairly quick too. In contrast, I feel a general disarray when I step out for shopping in Gurgaon.

They run a metal detector on you if you walk in by the main entrance. However, expect no such things in quite a few of Gurgaon malls if you park in the basement and take the elevator. Yes, they peep inside the car when you are about to enter the basement parking. And, the metal detector keeps beeping as people get inside, but I could not figure what they are trying to detect. Are they serious about security or serious about PR?

Coming back to Reliance Super. A reasonably spread out store in the basement and I locate tea-bags and few other things and head out for billing. No, there is no counter for ‘six items or less’, so I join a general queue. The lady ahead of me has come to do her monthly shopping and so her trolley is full. The billing assistant goes billing like this. Ten Amul Masti packs are run into the scanner one after another. Likewise, all pieces are scanned separately, even if they customer bought x number of the same item. Why apply brain to count?! Then, after scanning, he piles up whole trolleyful of stuff on the small table and tells the customer to take it. I could not fully understand, and I saw her putting everything in the trolley and heading for the exit.

Then comes my turn. I find that on the exit side of the billing counter, a one nine inch radius table is all the space on which the billing assistant can keep stuff after scanning (And I had heard that big chains get stores designed by experts!).  Thankfully, my things do not fall off that limited space. Then he helpfully tells me the amount payable, settles the cash and says, ‘le jaiye’. I asked him why he did not put my stuff in a carry bag. He said I need to buy paper bags, else he cannot help. Imagine, after billing, he tells me I need to buy carry bags. I did not see any text or visual notice to this effect which would warn my of such a possibility. I asked the billing assistant to cancel my billing and return my money. Instead, he suggested I see a counter at the exit called customer assistance desk and ‘maybe they can’ give me a carry bag. I felt I was not in India but landed in an alien land. Upon reaching the customer assistance desk,  I demanded a carry bag and I was given one, but no assistance was provided in putting the stuff inside the bag. The lady who was ahead of me at the billing counter was busy putting her stuff in multiple carry bags, since she had purchased a trolley full of stuff. Imagine, she had to do this business of putting and removing things on and from the trolley thrice, first time when she was doing her item selection along the shelves, second time when the billing clerk ran the scanner and let her stuff be strewn at the billing counter and told her to put it in the trolley and head for the customer desk and third, when the customer assistance guy lobbed some carry bags at her! Everyone had to do this thrice!!If this format of organised retailing was called ‘convenience stores’, where was the convenience? And what is ‘organised’ here? On my way back I was reflecting on the shopping experience – I had spent about thirty minutes inside the store, out of which twenty in the billing queue and beyond. The overall experience was awful.

However, I am not sure how much of it is Gurgaon issue and how much is by format design. The other day I was at Landmark outlet in Gurgaon where I wanted to buy Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Outliers’. The price is 399. The counter clerk wants me to tender exact change  since he has a change issue. I felt odd, how can I give an exact change of 99 when he cannot give me Re 1. Still, to  try to help, I search my wallet and tell him I did not have change either and ask him why he is running a store if he cannot does not have a one rupee coin with him ! A threat to cancel elicits the one rupee he had to give me!! And when he opens his secret stash of coins, I see he has plenty of coinage to take care of many customers such as me!!! Why, why????