Once upon a Saturday..

Friday, Friday...

Getting down on Friday...

Everybody's looking forward to the weekend...

Partying, partying..yeah...

Fun fun fun fun... ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♭ ♮ ♯

        -"Friday" by Rebecca Black 

No song could better sing out this universal tale that's gushed with the weekend excitement in our hearts !

Although I have only Sundays off, I'm still excited about Saturdays nearing. That's because I meet him every Saturday evening after work. And believe me, I get free from the unnecessary baggage of stress the moment I see him ! Such a magical smile he owns ! It kind of starts my weekend right.

We sit together and share giggles. We never restrain ourselves from being frank about the problems and resolving them together. We discuss our work and plan our future together. The world seems to be next to heaven in that moment ! We often get engaged in tittle-tattle and that's how Saturday evening turns out to be a stress-buster.   

Saturday evening is all about spending time with him. But that day, I stumbled upon a reason to observe the other side of the world as well, and, think !

Recently, we met at a commercial hub. The place as usual was full of food joints and cine-complexes. It was packed with people due to weekend. After having a round of eating and nice chat, we were on our way home. Moving ahead amid the crowd, we stopped to take a selfie as remembrance of the day. 

Along the exterior of the place, an elderly man was selling toys. It was not a shop, he was trying to sell them sitting on the floor itself. Unassisted, he was giving demos of his key-toys. The toys were not expensive. One could buy a toy at a price as low as Rs. 30. I found them cute so I bought one. 

The closest from that place were the food joints which were fully occupied with people. Families with kids were all around that area. I don't know why, but I just could not ignore what was happening.  Well-heeled people were coming and going, and many of them passed across that toy-seller. Some with eatables in their hands and some with shopping bags (all branded). Some of the kids were delighted by the sight of those toys. 

So the man started to give the demos frequently in the hope that some of the parents would purchase his toys for their kids. Many of them stopped to check out the toys. They asked the seller to give demo of several toys and he did so. After seeing all of it, they asked the price for few of them. 

Same  scenario was repeated again and again.  And the common iteration  was  
---->  "bhaiya 30 rupay bohot zyada hai, kam lagaao !" After performing futile trials, they all went away without purchasing any of them.

I mean, what were they expecting the price to be ? Rs. 10 ? I can't explain how the person's breaking hopes appeared on his face. 

This is something that I've never been able to understand. Why the affluent individuals demonstrate their art of bargaining in front of the needy (it doesn't include all street-side sellers, it just means "needy").  They are capable to pay all kinds of extra charges including the actual price of things. But when it comes to a toy worth Rs. 30, they say, 

"kam lagaao bhaiya"..