Fancy Shop

The Bengali New Year reminds me of a few young age memories. Ours was a small township with sector markets to serve various zone of township population. A drug shop, two sweet shops , vegetable walla, fish bazaar, a red meat shop , a fruit seller, a ration corner , a few grocery store, two fancy shops would complete the composition. One which had a Ladies Salon was considered posh one. The one in my neighbourhood didn't have one, rather it had a young Homeopathy doctor's chamber to fill in the gap.

Mr Monty Banik had a roaring grocery business. Each new year I would visit his shop with my father - a packet with 3 variety of sweets and 1 samosa along with a chill cold drinks would await for honour. My father would pick up a brand new Bengali Calender that Mr. Monty had to offer in the occasion and the messy sticky packet used to duly come back to home . I used to enjoy the Cola for free sipping through the straw and killing 30 mins from my study time. Generally that used to be my first taste of chill each summer.

Mr Monty had a fancy shop just besides his grocery store which was run by his brother Mr. Jonty Banik. Barbie was still not in market but loads of dolls , soft toys, hard toys hung across the store. It had a glass showcase full of girlish cosmetic - bangles of various shapes and size, fancy hair clips and so and so...I knew the shop had a refrigerator too. In summer they sold ice creams.

The interesting part was directly at the other end of the market was one more fancy shop with similar commodities owned by Mr. Saha. He too had loads of necessary and cosmetic articles that middle class Bengali would look for like products ranging from Talcum powder to nail polish, needle to embroidery threads , unknown names to brand names like Lakme , ponds etc. It too had cooling machines and offered Amul butter, colas and ice creams..

I preferred visiting the second store than the first. My needs were simple - embroidery threads for my crafts class or colored bangles for my dance performances or bundled white paper ( we called it Diste Pata) for mathematics practices work. These were my hands-on learning of business transaction, events to sharpen my mental maths and finally opportunities to unbound joy of economic power. Mr.Saha had help me grow as an individual as equally as my school teachers. He corrected me if I went wrong, he appreciated me if I was fast, he recognized me amidst all tall customers even though I was school student - well knowing my money was an empowerment my parents boosted. But he never ignored my potential. Had broad smile and kept tracing my academic growth path every time I visited his shop.

Only when he failed to provide me my choice of need and was certain that time was constraint at my end he directed to other shops in the locality. This is when in a few occasions I had stopped by Mr.Jonty Banik's shop. Very unlike his brother who was always proactive to serve customer , Mr.Jonty made successful transaction only when the requirement was precise. He never had the patience to take forward the customer even if it was one step +/- the defined specification. 'No' was his easiest and preferred choice. He remained as a shop keeper in my mind.

Years later far away from the place of my upbringing on such special evenings I still recall the market to which I was a customer. Honestly I didn't know what a customer means. Lessons learnt are invaluable to me as I stand in a service industry on the other end of the table.

Gyan #12 - Great Service is about going a little extra to honour and understand your customer