My First Lesson in Retail Management

“Going to bed with an empty stomach is better than going to bed with a heart filled with guilt.”

My first memory of grandpa was when I visited Garhwal in 1975, along with my brother Sanjay during my summer vacations. I was only 12 years old then; Sanjay only a year older. And the remote village of Nainidanda held no attraction for us.

Grandpa sensed our boredom and to make our vacations enjoyable, invited us to help him in running his shop. Within a week, we learned to use the weighing scale and were able to memorise the selling price of most of the high-selling items. We were super excited with our new-found responsibilities and schedule.

One day Grandpa had to go to a nearby village and as he was about to pull down the shutters, we offered to run the shop ourselves. He agreed since he had to be away for only a few hours. Our status suddenly elevated from shop assistants to the masters. Sanjay occupied Grandpa’s seat. He was my elder brother, he reminded me. I bargained with him that since I had readily given up my claim over the gaddi, he should allow me to handle the weighing scale. “You can,” said Sanjay, “provided you weigh correctly and let me handle the cash.” I agreed.

The few customers that visited us bought mundane items. We collected cash, counted the currency notes twice and returned the change without any problem.

One hour passed by. There was no sign of grandpa.

The sun was about to set and we also were about to close the shop when suddenly a group of six young boys in school uniform came in. They were from the neighbouring village and had to go to Dehradun the next morning.

“We want six belts,” said one of them softly. Perhaps he was overawed by the presence of such confident, city-bred salesmen. I could see they had never done much shopping before. Our shop stocked Rexine belts and grandpa sold them for Rs 10 apiece. I saw my moment of reckoning and promptly offered them the belts for Rs 20 each.

They hesitated for a minute, Sanjay jumped to my rescue “Pure leather Bhaiji,” he said in a tone that was so reassuring to those blokes that they agreed to buy. As soon as our customers left, we embraced one another.

Grandpa arrived sometime later and we narrated to him in great detail our exploits. We expected that he would marvel at our achievement but a stunned silence was all that we could elicit from the grand sire. A range of emotions ran across his face: anger, shame, despair and a deep sense of guilt.

He then pulled down the shutters of the shop and vanished into darkness.

We panicked and quietly slipped away. Grandpa came back after an hour or so and appeared much relieved. He had gathered from the tea vendor, who ran a shop just outside ours, that the boys from Mokshna village had visited our shop and one of the boys was the son of Kissa, the poor ironsmith. Grandpa had gone to Mokshna village the same night and somehow managed to visit the house of each one of the six boys. The extra amount charged from the naive customers was returned. Grandpa had also expressed his profound apologies for our misconduct.

He then called both of us to his room. We were scared that he would punish us. But he merely scolded us and extracted a promise from us that we would never overcharge or cheat anyone in future.

“Remember my children,” he spoke in a soft voice, “going to bed with an empty stomach is better than going to bed with a heart full of guilt. A customer is like God and to cheat him is sin.”

Thus began my course in Marketing Management. In 1975, when MBA courses had probably not yet made their entry into India.

Grandpa died in 1990. He remained unchanged till the very end. Honest and middle class.

Repurposed: First Published in The Pioneer Oped 3-April-1998