It has become the fashion as well as a convenience, now, to go to a supermarket and pick up all the provisions one wants to get, at one go. But I notice that the “convenient” process is beset with pitfalls, that the advertising and marketing people have put there for us shoppers. The tactics they adopt always encourage us to spend more,and buy items that we do not really need–or spend more money on brands more expensive than they should be. As this can impact our budgets, here’s a housewife’s take on some of the techniques one is likely to encounter. Unfortunately, most marketing techniques seem to fall under the category of being, at best, designed to make us spend more…and at worst, marketing skullduggery which misrepresents products and their prices (and ultimate cost-to-the-consumer) to the buyers.

I recently read about how supermarkets keep the milk right at the back, so that the consumer will have to go through aisles of other, tempting, but unnecessary stuff….and while I can understand the market tactics, I do go there directly and don’t spend time on what’s at the front…probably I am an adman/marketing person’s nightmare customer. But I do know several people who really enjoy the browsing, and trying out of new stuff and brands. This works well for me, too…from my try-the-new-brand friends, I get the feedback, and then am able to take a decision about buying a new product.

Another technique supermarkets adopt is to put a very wide variety of one particular type of product on the shelf…and the more expensive ones are always handier. I find that sparing the time to calculate the unit price (it is dispalyed in supermarkets abroad, but not in India), sometimes even with the help of a calculator, helps me make the best choice of product. It is a sad fact of life that one is probably going to pay more for the convenience of having many varities of a product on the supermarket shelves,as the shops will pass on the cost of the inventory to us, too.

Yesterday,we visited a friend’s new farmhouse, just beyond Sarjapura. It has been built on a piece of land leading to a small lake, with ducks (mallards, I think) on it. The house was sparingly, but appealingly, furnished, with a strong breeze blowing through…on the terrace, my friend’s wife had placed park-type seats and sitting there, watching a brahminy kite soaring and then dropping elegantly to perch on a wooden pole, feeling the breeze across my face, and watching the sunlight glitter on the water…I hardly knew how much time I had spent just sitting there when my friend came up to me and asked where I had been all this while. A piece of perfect peace…heaven comes in little slices, unexpectedly.

He started out proficient In the world of Eye tee And turned out he was really good, As well, at photographee.

Kodutthavan meendum ketkinraan…athai illai enraal avan viduvaanaa? Uravai sholli azhuvathaanaley uyirai meendum tharuvaanaa? Kookuraaley kidaikkaathu Ithu courtukku ponal jeyikkaathu Antha kottaiyil nuzhainthaal thirumbaathu….(Ponaal pogattum po daa…intha bhoomiyil nilaiyaay vazhnthavan yaarada?)