Our Diwali Cracker Sale

Pic source: www.team-bhp.com

Diwali, the festival of lights was fast approaching 1982 November, and during that time we four friends from Mangalore were staying in a rented house in Rajajinagar 3rd Block. Two friends were on a 'Permanent vacation', and they were doing research in 'Parasitology', clinging on to us for almost a year! Ganesh from Prabhu Bakery family whose father had a canteen in Yashwanthpur, was a regular visitor, and was like a guide to my old classmate cum home-mate Shivanand to run his business smoothly. Shivanand ran a gramophone disc lending library opposite Ram Mandir in 4th Block by name 'Anand Disc Club'. He also did cassette recording at home as supplementary service. 

Having developed a good clientele, being popular locally people because of his and his working partner cum relative Narayan's friendly happy go lucky nature, he thought of setting up a Fire crackers stall on the Ram Mandir ground. He had seen his rival Mayur Disc Club guy making good business selling crackers the previous year. Besides, the Bhandarkar brothers Dileep and Dinesh, who had weighing scales and fire crackers business on Avenue Road were close friends of Shivanand and Narayan. They had motivated Shivanand to go ahead and said they will support him, giving credit and good discount! 

So, Shivanand held a meeting with us home-mates and the parasites over dinner at Gay Lord Bar and Restaurant on 80 Feet Road, and said 'I am going to setup a pataki stall on Ram Mandir ground for Diwali starting on November 12 and ending on November 15. The stall will be open for 4 days. I will spend for all the necessary expenses including City Corporation license, setting up the stall, lighting and furniture, boards and banners, fire cracker stock and all your expenses including breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks and conveyance! Please join me, help me and make it a success. With all that extra money I can improve my disc lending library. I will give you all a grand party after the four day sale is over!"

We all nodded in approval. I was working for a Bank those days, and I said I shall take leave on two days when we don't have holidays. Shivanand had his father's Lambretta scooter to go around. He explained that the Bhandarkars keep their shop on Avenue Road open until late hours in the night so that two of us can go at midnight on the scooter, choose the variety of crackers and hire an autorickshaw to get it to our stall, arrange them before sun rise. So, when potential buyers visit the ground, they will find good stock in our stall and naturally tend to buy from us! By the time other stall owners go to the market and get the stock, it will be past 11:00am. That was a brilliant idea, and I agreed with him. I said, I will assist him in buying stock at midnight on all the days.

Shivanand went around with Ganesh in arranging things, getting the license, setting up the stall and fixing the furniture. He got the space allotted for the stall, a 15 feet x 10 feet plinth area in the second row on to the right, as we went down the steps of Ram Mandir ground from Shivanand's shop. A basic tin sheet roofed shed with an end to end counter at the front, a wooden display stand with steps at the center, racks on both sides and at the back to stock crackers. Since it was autumn month and the weather was naturally air conditioned in Bangalore, we didn't worry about the tin sheets getting heated up.

On November 11, as I woke up at 7:30am, I heard Steely Dan cassette of mine playing and the Bhandarkar brothers Dileep and Dinesh were tapping their feet listening to the number 'Bodhisattva'! I met them for the first time, and they were very friendly. They also appreciated my cassette collection. Shivanand told them that I will be the one who is going to join him for purchase of crackers at midnight. The Bhandarkar brothers assured us that they will give their full support and also added that best time would be between 12:00 midnight and 1:30am when they will be present, and there won't be any rush. at 2:00am they close down, they added.

Exactly at 10:00am on November 12, we the 'Magnificent Seven' opened the stall and started our Diwali fire cracker sale! Initial response was a bit slow, as it was a working day, and Bangalorean people are mostly conservative. They buy crackers only on the main Diwali days and skip the first and the last day mostly. However, by late afternoon people started swarming around, going around and comparing the prices at each and every stall!

My prior experience was running a fast food stall at the Ballalbagh Gurji Deepostava Mangalore in 1971, when I and our friends from ‘Blu Moon Sports Club’ had set up a stall selling Charmburi and packed snacks along with Bajal soft drinks. Following the strategy we had worked that day to attract people, I told Shivanand, "We better make two guys stand at the steps of both the entrances to the ground and guide people to our stall. Otherwise many miss out the banners put at the entrance, a few lazy ones will visit the first stall that they see and some known people also may miss ours".

That seemed to work better, and quite a few people expressed their surprise that we have a cracker stall there too! Teenagers and girls were more attracted to us naturally, because we Mangaloreans show personal attention with politeness, making them feel good, that most of the Bangaloreans lack! Some girls even started to hang around at our stall with an excuse to buy some forgotten item, and wouldn't move from our stall for hours, staring at some of us and trying to get friendly! I and Mahendra were attending to the customers, Shivanand finding the items from the stock and presenting them, Ganesh and Jyothiparakash making bills and accepting cash, Kedar and Narayan attracting people at the entrance to the ground and guiding them. That was our style of functioning. We kept rotating duties in the morning, afternoon and evening, so that none of us felt the work monotonous.

After the day's sale is over, at 11:00pm someone would go to Gay Lord, get food and drink for all of us, we would sit behind the display stand on the floor and have our dinner while discussing the funny incidences that happened during the day. Appanna our friend, a Coorgi boy working as waiter at Gay Lord Bar would join us during dinner, and he would also get some special complimentary dish! Past midnight, I would go with Shivanand to Avenue Road by his scooter, enter the godown of Bhandarkars', select whatever we wanted, dump the boxes in an auto and into the leg space of the scooter and bring that to the stall. After the four of us arranged the crackers on the racks and the display stand, two would stay back and sleep in the stall, while two of us returned home at 3:00am to rest!

The amount of profit Shivanand made by selling the crackers, was copious! Shivanand's way of dealing was, buy stock on credit, sell it with 120% margin while the MRP suggested 200%, give further 20% discount to known clients and pocket net 100%. After expenses, he will be left with 80%. He also got discount from Bhandarkar brothers on special items. So that also added up to his profit. Besides, Narayan and Kedar were adept at making totaling mistake or mistake in writing the item prices! Whether it was deliberate or due to bad calculation, they used to say ‘sorry’, correct the mistakes and give further 10% discount, if any customer pointed out! Thus, in 4 days, Shivanand made over 20000/- with an investment of 2000/- Rupees! Our purchase from the Bhandarkars was two to three times a day!

My satisfaction was learning trick of the trade and how to attract customers while selling a perishable item, learning business management from purchase, stock, pricing and sale. We had different pricing according to demand. First and last day we gave 'big discount', while on high days, we kept high margin! When we didn't have a particular item, we never let the customer go back or try at other stalls. We immediately sent someone to get that item from some know persons like Manja of Mayura Crackers. I also spread the word, and many of my relatives and friends staying in nearby areas like Malleshwaram, Mahalaxmi Layout, Peenya, Yashwanthpur, Srirampuram, West of Chord Road, Okalipuram and Mattikere came to buy crackers from our stall. A proud moment for me was when a relative came all the way from Frazer Town with family and bought crackers from our stall! 

The thrill of being recognised by the local people, especially beautiful teen girls, as partner of 'Anand Crackers' was almost like being noted as a movie hero those days! They started smiling and talking to me wherever they met me. Later in 1984 when I had a 'No Entry' case while riding my scooter near Ram Mandir by the Police, couple of locals tried to come to my rescue saying "He is our man sir. Please let him go!” I was served ticket, wrote apology letter at the Rajajinagar Police Station and escaped without paying fine or appearing in court, that's a different story!

Our Diwali Cracker Sale was an explosive hit and a thumping success, but Shivanand dropped the idea of setting up stalls in the succeeding years, as he lost interest in such hardship and risk after he got married. Besides, the two parasites had moved back home to Mangalore, and the 'Magnificent Seven' were reduced to 'Five Man Army'!