When you return from an exotic destination like India, there are certain questions that will always be asked. The food? Rich in the north, eye-wateringly spicy in the south. The weather? Stifling at times, but you don’t really mind because of the richness of life that surrounds you. What about money? Did you live like a king coming from the United States? That one’s not quite so cut-and-dry.
On one hand, the roughly 50 rupees to 1 dollar exchange rate means everyday items are a pittance. I found myself walking out of convenience shops with multiple bags of snacks, drinks, and candies just for tasting purposes. Where money gets trickier is buying specialty goods. You can purchase a Ralph Lauren polo shirt at a Kolkata mall that’s cheaper than its American counterpart, but the trade-off is shoddier construction and materials used in its creation. Same goes for India-only offerings like hand-knotted carpets, which can cost thousands of dollars: if there’s no exact duplicate in the Western world, how can you truly determine its worth? Negotiating is one way to bridge the divide. It took my wife and I over 2 weeks to slough off our American politeness (which Indians do not understand) and start getting our knuckles dirty. In the interests of keeping future American visitors to the subcontinent from getting too badly fleeced, I give you Nana Dada, my cousin in Kolkata, demonstrating how a typical negotiation goes down:
The high drama of a typical Indian negotiation.
This post was written by
Anish Majumdar – who has written 22 posts on DashAmerican.com.
Anish Majumdar is the creator of DashAmerican.com, a site devoted to insights at the intersection of cultures. He is of Bengali descent, raised in Canada, and currently living with his Irish-German-Lithuanian wife in upstate NY. His work has received Independent Press Association Awards and a Pushcart Prize nomination.
