ichra trip

What an afternoon!
A kilometer or so walk amidst generators’ fumes, sewerage stench and penetrating sunlight. my cheeks were tomato red by the time i got back.
ichra is a world in itself. the most prominent feature being the shopkeepers trying, very loudly, to sell their products as you pass by the shops. People in other shopping areas also do that, but in ichra it is an experience in itself to pass by every shop with the salespersons' distinct marketing techniques:

baji taaza lawn key prints...
guriya behn (!! probably coz of them damn cheeks) aap ko kia chahyay...
aaye'n baji.. mashAllahhh... har qism ki variety...
behn ji doppatay dye karai'n gi...?
it's like surfing through television channels or--if you care not to glance in direction of the voices--like swiftly changing radio channels.

At first all this got to my head. Are we, the consumer, so stupid that we can't see what each shop has to offer? Are we, the consumer, so fickle-headed that we can be goaded to buy useless things just because of loud pestering?

Then, however, I realized the brilliance of such technique. In a place of fierce competition just a couple of feet away and where a significant number of shoppers might be illiterate, it is the faceless voices that stick out. I might not remember any shop but I do remember the voices, I remember there is new lawn at one place, facility to dye dopattas in another, quilted bedcovers somewhere else and so on. It is just marketing, very desi style!