Kashmir is a well known place where women fashion shawls are hand made. These are "Pashmina" wool casual throws which are made in exquisite designs, mostly eye catching and also defines fashion statements for the fair sex.
Mostly Kashmiri men hawk these clothing materials door to door in up scale housing complexes. I had a run in with one of the Kashmiri hawker - Abdul in Chandigarh. A handsome looking tall guy with an assistant, Abdul is a super salesman. The hostess of ours wished us to see, buy and sell from a door to door vendor. Sushma and another cousin of hers readily agreed. I was curious to see this merchandising concept and encouraged it to happen.
Pashmina, I believe is a wool which comes from special sheep found in Kashmir. It is a fine wool and produces a finest quality fiber. It can be spun finer and finer and when woven into cloth, it makes a cloth as close as possible to the famous "Dhake ki Malmal", but in wool. Kashmiris do this wool spinning job better than anybody else. There is another sheep "Shahtoosh" which can be spun even finer than Pashmina. It is rare wool and Shahtoosh sheep are found in the upper reaches of J&K. Its trade is banned. Only a very few people illegally harvest Shahtoosh and they if caught face jail sentence. Illegally they do harvest this wool, Hence there is a definite reason to triple the price.
The super salesman Abdul, does the job of display to the prospective customer same as a traditional clothing merchant does in his shop, he dumps the whole lot of merchandize in front of you. Abdul carries his shop in a car. Everything is neatly packed in suitcases and properly locked up in his car. He may be carrying as much as Rupees 80 Lakhs worth of merchandise for sale in his car. His car is worth Rupees 4 lakhs only. He not only sells shawls but also scarves and other Pashmina stuff.
While displaying his stuff, Abdul all the time keeps an eye on developing fancy of the ladies. Prices are not talked about in the beginning, that Abdul will negotiate when liking has fully developed. Every lady including Sushma develop her fancy and then they asked for the price. Abdul is not about to price his prized possessions at this early stage. He wants to extol the virtues of each piece separately. Some shawls with a fancy color are called "Morcan". It is pretty and multicolor design with peacock like color pattern. Other designs are "Rani can". He lets the ladies know that, if you walk with this shawl, you will look like a Rani (Queen).
I was curiously watching the salesmanship and decided to ask him a question.
How do they make it?
He replies - these are handmade on a "Khaddi" or loom. Only one person makes it and takes anywhere from three to six months. That longtime is taken because the fibre is so fine and breaks easily. It is totally unlike silk, where the fiber is so strong. A Khaddi is a hand operated loom which a person operates with his hands and feet. It is basically the same process where textiles are made. The operator feeds fibers with his feet (paddle) and crosses it with another fiber with his hand (a mouse). If he or she throws the mouse with great force, the fiber breaks, if he or she throws gently, it does not reach the other end, hence waste of time. On a Khaddi an operator makes the base of the shawl in various colors.
Now comes the printing of various patterns - Morcan or RaniCan or all other type. The patterns and sometimes other kind of work is done by hand or machines. It is a major operation which adds beauty to the Shawls. That is where price variations occur. No two shawls would look alike, because these are individually made and printed.
Villages upon villages in Kashmir highlands are employed by this work. There are factories employing 300 people. Each person operates one loom and finishes one job from start to finish. Finished products of household looms or factories ends up with distributors who loads a whole lot of this stuff in his truck and drives from city to city and hands these over to vendors like Abdul.
Now comes the moment of pricing part. He quotes a price of Rupees 80,000 for one which the ladies liked the most. The Shahtoosh one is priced at Rupees 186,000.
All ladies are taken aback by the price. Rest of the hour he spends trying to convince the ladies that his is just the right price. Nobody is convinced, rather none is prepared to shell out that kind of money for a shawl. Our hostess offers Rupees 30,000. She is a tough negotiator. Being a daughter of a big businessman, she has mastered the art of negotiations and she will not budge. Abdul begins to pack and he tells his assistant to take the merchandise suitcases to his car, a smart negotiating ploy. He makes the last offer, he has reduced the price considerably. Soon the ladies begin to look a bit glum, at not being able to buy anything. As the hostess leaves the company of Abdul, she makes another offer, her negotiating ploy. It is a bit higher. As Abdul is about to leave, he makes a last of last offer. Now the gap of what our hostess has offered and what Abdul is prepared to take has narrowed down. The deal is finally stuck. The other cousin of Sushma finally got a fine looking shawl, which she always wanted. She would have been a lot poorer, if she had paid the original price.
That time, I leant that there is nothing in India sold at the display MRSP price. You have to make an offer and receive a counter offer and then reach the agreed price.
Hari
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