Rudraksha

There are many bead-sellers who trudge every day from person to person on the sand of Gokarna's beaches. They lurk near each tourist in turn, waiting for some minutes, standing or crouching with an arm raised and a thick blanket of necklaces hanging down. Occasionally there is a conversation, polite trivia beyond the words 'would you like some beads, just looking, looking free'. Other times the beads are held up in silence. The flies rasp their front legs at the smell of interest, and the negotiations begin. The starting demand for the necklaces is high, up from the 'one hundred rupees only' of last year. This time any necklace desired costs two hundred, five hundred or seven hundred Rupees. Tourists fall for it, if the initial demand is seven hundred, then a negotiated price of two hundred must be a good deal. Other times less savvy tourists have paid more for a single necklace, or have been taken advantage of with a bulk discount. A popular style, and something vaguely topical for India, are the Rudraksha beads. These are the rough, ridged seeds of a large tree, which have a traditional use as prayer beads in Hinduism. There are many other types though, "any colour you like", as is said. But the 'real gold' turns green, the 'real silver' turns brown, and the 'real gems' are just glass. The necklaces and bracelets bought for hundreds of Rupees on the beach sell for between thirty and eighty Rupees at the main town, just a few kilometers away.

The question often asked by incredulous tourists during negotiations is this: 'tell me the real price'. Most Israelis on the other hand know to start with a counter offer of ten Rupees. So what is the real price? A bead seller certainly isn't the right person to ask this question. If a competitive market can answer the question, then the price in town is the real price of beads. If it's understood that walking in the hot sun is added labour, they provide a service in convenience of sale, or inconvenience of disturbance if you're not into dressing like a hippie. But the real issue is with the variable price. Bartering fails in this case for two reasons, one party doesn't know the monetary value of what is on offer, and that no skill related to the production of the beads is a factor in the price (though the bead sellers do produce their own necklaces. They buy beads in bulk from the northern states for prices per kilo and thread them.) This is where the practise fails an intuitive sense of fairness, the money earned does not correspond to value added or work done. That someone can run a business which is not based on adding value but selling things to people who don't know the true value. The skill they sell is manipulation and deception. In my mind haggling can't die a death soon enough.