Kapil Jain: Story: Mr. Meetha Seth's quench

Kapil Jain: Story: Mr. Meetha Seth's quench

This is a real life story, name, place & situation modified to protect identity.

We were the manufacturer of electronic goods and used to sell our products to our dealers for further retail sales.

One such dealer was Mr. Meetha Seth at his shop in the Chandni Chowk area, Delhi in Indian Capital.

The Chandni Chowk area is a commercial & cultural hub since Mughal era, circa 1600 AD having huge wholesale & retail markets of Clothes, Jewellery, watches, electronic, pharmaceutical,  chemical, spices, etc. etc.,  You name it, Chandni Chowk have it.

Mr. Meetha Seth's shop is one of the oldest & most reputed amongst electronic goods selling Radios, Transistor, record player etc. With a sizable cash sale per day and a very good turnover.

In Hindi language "Meetha" means Sweet & "Seth" means Rich Man, 
Mr. Meetha Seth means sweet & rich man, exactly true to his name, Mr. Meetha Seth was a Shop Owner, class apart, if any customer was not convinced by any of his subordinate salesmen for any products, he always jumped in to the direct negotiations with the customers edging his salesmen behind, and in the end Customers were completely webbed within Meetha Seth's sweet style & salesmanship. That's why his shops sales were always very high. But he never bluffed his customers, his Motto of shop keeping was always "Value for money”, that's why, once a customer, always a customer, furthermore a satisfied customer always bring his neighbor to purchase the goods from his shop. 

He was a hard core shopkeeper, loves shop keeping, and hates spending time at home even on Sundays and holidays.

Apart of all this Meetha Seth has certain typical personal characteristic like his extreme fondness towards Street food all day & whisky in the evenings.

As any Delhi-ite can tell you that superb & ultimate Street food of all variety is synonymous with Chandni Chowk, from Dawn to Dusk, 
From Spicy to juicy to sweet to sour, 
from hot to super-hot to cold to freeze, 
Food paradise per se. On carts or on specialist shops, scores of availability are there since ages, some speciality are hundred years old, generation after generations, believe me.

Any cart of food special, passes by Meetha Seth's shop, he has to have it, 
& in the evening before closing time, his subordinate salesmen know a daily routine to purchase a bottle of whisky.

Around closing time of shop, he used to have a peg of whisky with any of food special before slipping into car back seat for home return, in between the journey to home, another peg, as his chauffeur has already prepared everything for his boss Meetha Seth.

After all this going on, would have chronic effect, so did to Meetha Seth, 
One day, he had extreme pain & an attack at home, His wife Mrs. Jaya Kiran took him to hospital, where Doctors rings the ultimatum bell about his heart & health, and he was extremely obese & just escaped a heart attack which could result in his life, told him to reduce weight, all oily food, all whisky etc. etc., the endless list for health recovery.

Meetha Seth's family, specially his wife Jaya Kiran was completely shocked & shaken by this, requested Meetha Seth to leave this bad habits for health recovery.

Meetha Seth was also completely aware of the grim situation decided to call a quit. He starts observing restraints. Days passes, again started a small portion of street food, then a small peg, further you can assess.

Mrs. Jaya Kiran was extremely learned & strong lady knows the consequences of the continuation of these bad habits, used to enquire about the daily routine from an old trust wordy salesman named "Bahadur", he used to tell her the truth, which leave no other alternative to take all financial & administrative control herself.

Meetha Seth gives up all this as aware about his fragile health & weak will power as in case of food and whisky as well as the strong nature of his wife, start giving all cash received from daily sales to wife, who further makes payment to material suppliers of the shop.

The sole purpose of this arrangement was that Meetha Seth should not have any cash in the Shop, henceforth the restrictions on his Street food & whisky spending could be curtailed, Seems very odd & not workable solution, but idea devised by Shop Lady, what anybody can do anything including Meetha Seth.

She further deputed Salesman Bahadur to have an eye on Meetha Seth.

Meetha Seth has to live life on simply boiled home cooked food, which start giving positive results in couple of months.

Three things were happening simultaneously, first recovery of health, secondly all losing control of administration & finance, thirdly very strict vigil on him by Salesman Bahadur, reporting to her about smallest details, making Meetha Seth extremely restless inside, or Restlessness is the result of non-availability of Street food & whisky, very difficult to say?

This was the time around 1984 after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi & aftermath tense atmosphere afterwards. Different political parties were cooking their strategy on already charged & hot political scene, often call for "Bandh" means General Strike for one pretext or other to sustain their vested interest.

In the beginning General Strikes, the law & order situation was such that for security reasons, all shops were closed, but when this general strike call were quite frequent, peoples were fed up with this, a few start opening the shops with half Shutter open as a matter of caution. But customers’ foot falls were negligible. In Nut Shell, this was like a destroyed day.

On this kind of one day, 
Meetha Seth has opened his shop with half Shutter down with only two junior salesmen one named Kaliyah other named Tilak ( Bahadur was absent) , with a very few half open shops, otherwise Completely empty market, according to him, killing time at shop is better killing time at home.

Till evening, not a single rupee sale was conducted as no customer visited even to ask anything.

At evening,  A "Sadhu" ( A holy man  who lives begging)  glared inside half open Shutter, ask can I purchase a Radio, Meetha Seth over willingly asked him to come inside, Asked him about which Quality Radio he wants, he replied vaguely a big 40 watts Radios, A Salesman shows up a Radio costing Rs.700.00 

Then "Sadhu" pulled a red coloured pouch from his attire, which was full of pennies etc., collected by begging, The estimated value of all pennies etc., were not more than Rupee 300.00 – 400.00, Much less than Radio's cost. Said this is all he has to offer.

Meetha Seth refused to sell Radio as money was very less than cost.

"Sadhu"  collected pennies in red pouch & was about to leave shop, just below half down Shutter,
Meetha Seth Called him back with a loud voice : OK come back & take Radio, give whatever you have in Red Pouch.

Sadhu offloaded all pennies again on Counter, take Radio & left the Shop.

Meetha Seth ask one of the junior Salesman "Kaliyah”: collect all the coins, quickly bring a bottle of whisky and one plate of Potato Hash Brown Ticky.

The end....  kapilrishabh@gmail.com

Kapil Jain: Story: Mr. Meetha Seth's quench