Just got back from a trip to Udaipur. We visited the sari section of the Hathipol market. We were in a small gali where all these shops were at and entered one of them. I stood outside killing time while the Mrs was being show the collection by a 30 something dude. I looked at him and it struck me. This dude deals exclusively with women for a living. What must that be like?
I found out he was married and thought that his job would either make him a doting husband or a wife beating psychopath (given that he takes shit from women all day). But when you really get down to it, being a sari salesman is a highly skilled job. Why? Because you need to UNDERSTAND women. He has to be patient because its crazy the amount of saris a single lady will go through before making up her mind. He need to be approachable and cannot letch. He needs to engage, entertain, assess, understand and sell a product he has never used.
He also told me that that he has to show an average of 65 saris before a women makes up her mind and this number may go up to 90. My wife being a quick shopper went through only 22 before picking up her sari.
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5 comments:
this was so interesting! you should have developed the part on how his work involves dealing ONLY with women!
saw 5 and picked up one.....correction
Satya.... Trust you to thing something really out of the box even about sari shopping....
Thats a lovely note on the Sari Man.
Coming to think of it, never gave it a detailed look. The women can really tire the chap out, but never seen them complaining.
Hats off to these salesguys, & hats off to the women also, to have great preservance to go through even 90 saris before choosing one.
Your blog is one of my top fave blogs Satyajit! Hilarious!
I will share some saree-shopping incidents with you, and how I wanted to kill some women on a trip and start a pity fund where these sales men can be counseled so they don't get scarred for life, just like war-soldiers.
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