Subir Roy: Best of both worlds

OFFBEAT

The fellow who runs the local franchise of the fruits and vegetables coop Hopcoms is a bit odd. If he is not happy with the quality of what he has, he will not sell it to me. No, the papaya is no good, take some oranges if you like, they are good. I bought the modestly-priced oranges and found that they were excellent. I couldn't tell my wife his name but confidently declared, he is a friend of mine "" which he is.

It was the same with the mithai shop-owner in Delhi's Chittaranjan Park. How could I take the dahi in the earthen pots all the way to Gurgaon so that it wouldn't get shaken and all messed up? He thought for a moment, wrapped up the pots in several folds of newspapers so that they had a base to sit and would not tumble over when travelling in the car. I don't know the old man's name but I am sure he and I had struck an instant rapport. He was a great retailer and he knew that I knew it.

It was the same with the old man who manned the famous provision store in Himachal's McLeodgunj, on the way to where the Dalai Lama lives. The carved wooden shelves dark with age, the organised confusion behind the counter and the silver hair of the owner made the shop Dickensian. How could I be sure that the ham would preserve through the longish drive to Palampur, which was at a much lower altitude, on a warm day? He thought for a moment, methodically wrapped the packet several times in newspaper, and handed it over to me with the cryptic words, good insulation. The ham was preserved and I thought, what a great retailer.

Would all these wonderful people be gone when the large retail chains came? Hema Stores in Bangalore's Indiranagar is a large store with about 15 employees around at any one time, conceptually placed right between the corner stores and the large chains. Ask anyone who has ever lived in the neighbourhood and they cannot cease to rave about Hema. Those who have shifted out, come there when they can, just to get the old feel. Why is it great? It's got everything that you can need, tucked into limited shelf space; and the stuff is always good (you will never get anything carelessly left behind after the expiry date) and the staff, with limited English, is always helpful.

When the other distinctive department store, M K Ahmed, a bit further down on CMH Road, opened a massive multi-storied store three minutes from Hema, I was worried. How would it face the competition? Nothing happened. M K Retail, as the new store is called (presumably to give it a more mainstream label) is doing roaring business. The range is huge, from furniture to grocery. Its shoppers' cars clog the nearby lanes at weekends. And Hema? It is doing fine, thank you. It is tidier and more convenient, thanks to a generational management change.

This is not all. In the past three years, a large new store of FoodWorld has opened on 100 ft Road nearby, and giving it stiff discount competition across the road is a store of FabMall. To the best of my knowledge, this onslaught by large retail has not made a single corner store in the neighbourhood close down. I know Bangalore has huge buying power but the rest of the country is not far behind. Maybe most urban middle-class Indians are like me. They savour both the personal touch of the man behind the counter at the corner store and the modern shopping experience in air-conditioned comfort in a retail chain. Long live all of them.