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The Times of India -- Dec. 16, 1998
<bold> Smuggled Haul
</bold>
By P V NARAYANASWAMY
SOME people have an insatiable craze for foreign goods. My
friend's
wife was one such. She was never tired of bragging about
how
adroitly she struck enviable bargains in the Burma Bazaar
in
Tiruchirappali, Tamil Nadu. As a matter of fact, the
variety and
profusion of imported articles displayed with abandon in
the bazaar
was breathtaking.
One day she bought a tin of foreign cocoa for a hundred
rupees. I
dare say that she was captivated more by the gleaming
container
than the contents. Back home, she organised a party to
celebrate
her son's thirteenth birthday. The cake was to be baked
with
imported cocoa.
On opening the tin, to her undisguised consternation she
found that
it was filled with sawdust. Shaken more by the
sentimental
inauspiciousness of it on such a happy occasion of the
son's
birthday -- he was entering his teens -- than by the
monetary loss
involved, she made a beeline to the shop. Without mincing
words,
she demanded her money back. The stall-owner was away,
and
apparently his assistant was not taken into confidence by
his boss
regarding the tricks of the trade. So, he laconically
replied ``We do
not sell any foreign cocoa.''
The lady returned home thoroughly disconsolate at the
sordid turn of
events. However, there being no alternative, she emptied
the tin.
She was pleasantly flabbergasted to find two beautiful
cellophone
packets containing two elegant wrist watches of a reputed
foreign
make. Her discreet enquiries revealed the watches were
genuine,
costing about a thousand rupees each.
The story does not end there. The happy augury of a fine
foreign
wrist watch for the son as a present on his birthday was
soon
followed by a visit from the shop owner. Tiruchirapalli is
small
enough for everybody to know everybody else. Touched to
the quick
by his assistant's incorrigible behaviour, he scoured the
streets and
located the customer at her home. Approaching her
meekly,
tendering profuse apologies and shedding crocodile tears,
he
admitted his inexcusable lapse and offered a genuine tin
of cocoa in
exchange for the wrong one. The lady, of course, was not
amused
and paying him back in the same coin she said, ``I do not
buy any
foreign cocoa from any one.''
She realised that rumours about genuine goods being
smuggled in
false containers were not without a basis. Not many among
the
workers in the bazaar were aware of the well-planned
distribution
channels for smuggled goods. The assistant being
blissfully ignorant
of the system, innocently exposed the trade by disclaiming
the
lady's offer.
The episode not only proved a blessing in disguise for her
but also
provided ample grist for her gossip mill. She was
flamboyantly
narrating to me, how she outwitted the dealer in his
chicanery.
In retrospect, I was in two minds. No doubt the seller got
what he so
richly deserved for such a nefarious trade. Did the lady,
in gloating
gleefully over her tit-for-tat attitude, overact
Goldsmith's ``She stoops
to conquer'' with barefaced blatancy?
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