If you've ever taken a cab or driven to town from the suburbs or even Worli Sea Face, you know that the Haji Ali stretch is mind-numbing in peak hours. The tenish kilometer stretch can take anywhere between five minutes and one hour to drive by. In the same situation today, I saw a young man selling pirated books packed in polythene covers and made to look as legitimate as possible.
Now, during the 45 minutes or so I spent on that stretch, there was a taxi cab in front of me, in which a woman showed an interest in buying one of those books. For this young man, he had struck gold.
I say this for two reasons. First, most of us don't read. and second, even if the few of us that do, we don't buy a book while sitting in a 45 minute ten kilometer stretch. We're painstakingly furious at the red lights, other drivers and even ourselves sometimes, let along buying a book to read.
He had some ten books in his hand, and he showed her one by one patiently. She didn't like any of them. As we moved further along in the traffic, he moved with the car. He went away, and came back with more books in a matter of two minutes. These books he kept on the divider and when he came back, he did the same thing: showed her more books one by one. The process repeated until she was interested in one of the books.
This young man may be in his early twenties, and made a hundred bucks after twenty minutes of showing his collection and bargaining. He then goes to the next car where a woman sits, who looks like she might read a book.
He shows not only an understanding of his "market" (primarily women, perhaps men rarely buy from him) but also the perseverance and determination that he's not letting a sale go to waste. Inspiring.
