Well, apparently Big Bazaar is a "national" chain of stores across India which sells a host of things at prices unmatched anywhere else. Until the last week of my trip in India, I'd never heard of them. And I finally did hear of them because of my unsuccessful khoj (hunt) for a suitcase that was also big as well as inexpensive, as well as "branded" so as to not have it split on me while emerging on the conveyor belt. After unsuccessful Witco ( a large travel chainstore) visits I had almost given up hope when Appa found a full page ad on the paper advertising inexpensive travel cases at this place. Having never seen it before, we thought it would be worth our while to go there once and check it out. And so we did.
The first time - And at first glance it appeared as if we'd hit the jackpot of luggage seekers. A variety of well-acclaimed luggages were on big sales of 20-40% off. We looked at many and narrowed it down to an American Tourister green mid-sized suitcase in conformance with the measly European baggage allowances. All seemed well. They were even giving a coveted flask free with the purchase (which by the way was scored all the brownie points from my Paati when we called her to tell her about it). And so off we went to checkout, paying about 40% less than we'd pay at any other place at the modern day prices. Pleased with ourselves and armed with the bag we went home. And while showing off the purchase at home, I reached in to retrieve the free flask which I had seen the salesman stow in... only to grab thin air inside. Puzzled I opened it wide to reveal the empty depths. Uncharacteristically my dad grabbed the phone and called the store to tell them that they'd not given us what we were entitled to. They told us that we could come in at any time and pick it up.. I didn't see that happening when I was around.
The second time - But my mom said she didn't mind taking a look at the place and so we set off to get the flask. It went smoothly enough and without much ado we got the flask. We also bought some other stuff for the house, door mats and other things... And so we were done, I naively thought.
The third time - And so we went and with 2 days to go, the packing began. We carefully stacked away all the podis and pulikachal and what not amongst clothes and other things. And when we were done, we stood the suitcase on it's wheels... and it keeled over. No, we hadn't stuffed it that much... the stupid wheel broke! I was flabbergasted that something "branded" could give away that easy. We vowed to go back and got it exchanged. The Big Bazaar had cast a curse on us, it appeared. And so we went... With a lot of drama (courtesy me), we got it exchanged with a lot of wariness. And we were sick of going to Arcot Road all the way from Adyar. We sincerely hoped it was the last time. Not to be...
The fourth time - We got the new case home and started delicately filling it with all the samaan that we had offloaded from the other one... when I remembered that I had stashed my old cell phone and charger into one of the flaps on the inside of the previous suitcase. And I had forgotten to remove it. I was devastated. My dad immediately called the store and had them looking for it. They called us back, bless them, saying that they had located it. And that meant we went yet again and got it finally. I was done. It was a big fat curse. And I hoped never to set foot over the premises ever again. And I was careful not to buy anything more.
And finally we broke the curse, it seemed.
The first time - And at first glance it appeared as if we'd hit the jackpot of luggage seekers. A variety of well-acclaimed luggages were on big sales of 20-40% off. We looked at many and narrowed it down to an American Tourister green mid-sized suitcase in conformance with the measly European baggage allowances. All seemed well. They were even giving a coveted flask free with the purchase (which by the way was scored all the brownie points from my Paati when we called her to tell her about it). And so off we went to checkout, paying about 40% less than we'd pay at any other place at the modern day prices. Pleased with ourselves and armed with the bag we went home. And while showing off the purchase at home, I reached in to retrieve the free flask which I had seen the salesman stow in... only to grab thin air inside. Puzzled I opened it wide to reveal the empty depths. Uncharacteristically my dad grabbed the phone and called the store to tell them that they'd not given us what we were entitled to. They told us that we could come in at any time and pick it up.. I didn't see that happening when I was around.
The second time - But my mom said she didn't mind taking a look at the place and so we set off to get the flask. It went smoothly enough and without much ado we got the flask. We also bought some other stuff for the house, door mats and other things... And so we were done, I naively thought.
The third time - And so we went and with 2 days to go, the packing began. We carefully stacked away all the podis and pulikachal and what not amongst clothes and other things. And when we were done, we stood the suitcase on it's wheels... and it keeled over. No, we hadn't stuffed it that much... the stupid wheel broke! I was flabbergasted that something "branded" could give away that easy. We vowed to go back and got it exchanged. The Big Bazaar had cast a curse on us, it appeared. And so we went... With a lot of drama (courtesy me), we got it exchanged with a lot of wariness. And we were sick of going to Arcot Road all the way from Adyar. We sincerely hoped it was the last time. Not to be...
The fourth time - We got the new case home and started delicately filling it with all the samaan that we had offloaded from the other one... when I remembered that I had stashed my old cell phone and charger into one of the flaps on the inside of the previous suitcase. And I had forgotten to remove it. I was devastated. My dad immediately called the store and had them looking for it. They called us back, bless them, saying that they had located it. And that meant we went yet again and got it finally. I was done. It was a big fat curse. And I hoped never to set foot over the premises ever again. And I was careful not to buy anything more.
And finally we broke the curse, it seemed.
2 comments:
it was nice of them to return your stuff.. you should go there again IMO. Try returning a suitcase in saravana stores? And try retreiving your cell phone... :)
and what a funny word blogger is asking for word verification "ematinda"
Sesh -> Luckily enna "yemathala" :). I agree that the service of the people was mighty nice though the same can't be said of the quality of the goods. All said n done, the new potti did make it here in one piece and it was as heavy as it cud get. So maybe really, it was a case of continued bad luck.
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