I wanted to purchase some perfumed charcoal to burn in my home and I was hunting for shops. I found this one shop selling devotional items, near a fish market; strange but true!
I entered his shop and the shopkeeper immediately stood up in attention to greet me.
Come in, come in sir. How can I help you?
I explained to him my mission and he showed me the perfumed charcoal within no time he showed me one piece and said that it’s impotent. And immediately I understood that there is some problem with his pronunciation. He wanted to say imported. So, I immediately requested him to cut off his English and proved to him that I’m an Indian fellow and a Hindi speaking man.
I asked for the price and he quoted Rupees 40. I’m also a crazy fellow. I bought the perfumed charcoal to my ear and told him that it says that my price isn’t as high he quoted. He immediately recognized my insanity and quoted Rupees 30.
His shop was full of colorful elements for devotional purposes. Incense, perfumed oil, bell, camphor, saffron, this and that I was fascinated by the collection and started talking to him.
When I asked his name, he flamboyantly replied Rangeela Rajasthani.
I loved his attitude and inquired more. He told me that he was from Udaipur and had come to Mumbai to help his brother in the shop. There’s nothing much to do there other than farming, so he had turned towards the city of dreams!
He showed me his shop and we talked for a while until his brother came in and blasted our conversation. He was quite angry about the whole scene and requested me to leave so that he can attend another customer; although there were none.
It might have been a short stint but an interesting one. I packed my perfumed charcoal, actually the impotent perfume charcoal, and started walking. On the way, I was talking to myself about coming back to him and hear some of his colorful stories.
Suddenly, I got inquisitive to check the product for its foreign identity. But nothing, there was no mention of where it’s made.
