The five commandments of purchasing Mobile phones in India

#1 : Barter does exist : Bring all your old cell phones along. Start a charity drive for orphans of kappala & collect old mobilephones in your locality. Phone does not work? No problem. May explode on contact? Even better. Has a nude girl as wall paper? Premium. For every old mobie phone you push across the counter, he will put the price down a couple of thousand. Put across ten & he may even give it to you for free. Put across twenty & he'll surely give you mug-shots of his kids. Take these mug shots back home as living proof of yet more of the kappala orphans.

#2 : A receipt is an insult. : Since all indian establishments are named "Something something AND SONS", by demanding an receipt, you are possibly asking the man for proof of the name of the establishment. Which means you are definitely accusing him of being an Bastard. He will charge you three thousand extra for this. Atleast. This is the prime reason why we Indians keep spitting all the time. When we spit, we are actually remembering the last time some dirty foreigner asked us for a receipt & called us a bastard. Ask him first how much the mobile costs. He will tell you a price. Look meaningfully at him & ask him how much it costs without a receipt. He will look meaningfully at you & tell you another price. Do not look meaningfully at him if you are a woman. If you then look meaningfully at him, he will be only too glad to reduce the price & then at the conclusion of the deal there will be some confusion on the nature of the deal.

#3 : Body is just a vessel for the Soul : Such is our belief. Soul is interchangable. So are mobile phone circuitries. Make sure that the mobile phone he gives you is in a sealed package. Like the hymens of Saudi women, these will not be a sure indication of their virtue. Make sure you open them & check that the serial number on the inside of the phone is the same as that mentioned on the cover.

#4 : No interest is in your interest.: Do not appear interested in the purchase of the mobile phone. Infact pretend to puke at the sight of mobile phones. This will induce the shopkeeper to offer you the phone at a much lesser price then he would a person who really looked like he needed a phone. You might wonder, with what apparent purpose should one enter a mobile phone shop, if one apparently hates the sight of mobile phones. The answer, like all Indian riddles is simple. In all Indian mobile phones, you will find giant pictures of Lord Ganesha or Pamela Anderson. Some shops have both. Enter the shops with the sole apparent purpose of paying obiesence to these curvaceous figures and in between the faked gasps of your retching, casually ask the price of a few mobile phones.

#5: You are an sucker & will get suckered : Do not worry. Do not hate. The seller is just doing his karma. You will get screwed in the deal. That is your karma. we all have a part to play in this world.

Play yours.