Today, I decided to take the plunge. So I walked across the street of my office, and strode upto the guy who always stands there, adorning the wall behind him with magazines having covers of semi-naked men. A gay porn dealer right there in the middle of Bombay's busy busy financial district, a stone's throw away from a girls' school.
Note to self: First law of Entrepreneurship is Location, location, location...!
So the guy looks at me, with a very cheesy grin on his face, and asks me what I want. I briefly considered feigning naivette and asking whether these were all bodybuilding mags, but his cheesy grin told me I would have no reason to. So, the guy proclaims proudly, "All I have is gay dvd. Good quality gay dvd. Nowhere else in Bombay", even as his ratty looking assisstant (probably a nephew from Ulhasnagar) shrinks back in obvious mortification.
A part of me was wondering whether the guy was gay himself, and whether he watches the stuff that he sells, but I decided to be all business-like and went on to price issues, instead. "Not worth Rs 500," I dismissed, when he told me what he was charging, "The guys outside there charge Rs 80 for straight porn - "
"They charge Rs 80, because they have what everyone else does, sir! My shop is the only one in Bombay with pure gay dvd," interrupted the smooth operator, quite proudly. "How much will you give? Tell me."
And then his face blanched when I told him my limit was Rs 100. "How many will you take? Ok, I'll give you for Rs 200, how's that?"
I was quite enjoying myself, engaging in not-so discreet haggling about gay porn right there in the middle of a busy intersection, where the nuns from the nearby school could easily have been passing by, and I wondered to myself, whether he gets a lot of business from the 'straight-acting' bankers that flock to this part of town everyday. Wondered whether the guy's shop could be used as a slightly sleazy pick-up joint, but then I told him that a hundred bucks was as far as I was willing to go, and that I would first take one and check the quality at home before venturing to buy more.
He sadly shrugged his shoulders, while I smiled and resumed my walk towards the office.
I'm thinking of passing by his stall again tomorrow, with my straight colleague (who I'm out to), and scandalize them both, by pointing out the stall to him. That would ensure, the guy knows I'm a regular, and if he gives me a dvd cheap and which doesn't hang my system, I'll be back for more. On day three, I'll suggest that he gives me two for three hundred bucks, instead of one for two hundred.
;-)
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