Upto 80 per cent discount! Clearance Sale! So how does one react to an ad of this sort?
Wow! If not 80 per cent, may be I could get lucky with 50 per cent at the least! So after a movie at the multiplex, I marched straight into this bookstore nearby.
Interesting! Those titles I loved to grab! The Japanese Wife, White Tiger, Three Mistakes of my Life...no sign of discount on them. Discounts were available only on books I had no reason to pick up. On books that really mattered, the MRP was just the same - not a penny less. To clarify matters, I grabbed a book I liked from the shelf and asked the cash counter guy, what the discount on that particular book was.
``Discounts are only for our book club members, ma'm. Others do not get discounts!'' he snapped, rather non-chalantly. Oh Yeah! So the bookstore chain succeeded...in conning a gullible book-lover like me to go to the store, gape at the books and feel like a beggar who depended on discounts to buy them. Of course, it fooled us book-store regulars and made us look foolish enough, to be so audacious as to do a walk-in! Lesson: Discount sale ads are con-bills meant to entice you.
Sigh! Give me Bangalore's Premier Book Store and Select Book House any day. With some reservations, I wouldn't mind even Blossoms.
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