Chronicles of a Jongleur

The first time I ever came across the term Wal-Mart was in an obscure novel by Dean Koontz. Back then, a dozen years back, I had assumed that this was just another supermarket; you see my mind had trained itself to associate any terms that remotely meant supermarket to the Kamadhenu superstore that once graced the twin ends of Mount Road in Madras.

Of course that was a generation ago, and going to the supermarket was an occasion for celebration. For us kids, it was akin to a little holiday in the midst of shelves stacked with a myriad of stock groceries ranging from tiny tubes of Colgate toothpaste to gargantuan sacks of sugar and rice. Most of the stuff would be really old. I remember seeing this rack of magazines and comics that you could date to the 70’s complete with yellowing paper and torn covers. Some of the chocolates would have multiple strata of dust on their jackets. Of course, we didn’t realize then that supermarket was merely a euphemism for a store-like ration shop. Maybe prices were subsidized, but nowhere did it even remotely compare with the modern day super center.

No one really cared whether the merchandise was new, old, ancient or rotten. The pure excitement of being in a store that rivaled the corporation volleyball court in size was enough to teleport us into a land of excitement and joy. Simple pleasures of childhood that have now long been forgotten.

Moving to America, I discovered that retail is more than an industry; the concept of a retail discount superstore is now being spoken of as the defining phenomenon for the 20th century consumer. Superstores have distorted the paradigm of budget shopping; the mantra is to stock all you can under one roof, throw in duplex discounts and let the customers hound in. The blockbuster success stories? The Wal-Marts and the Targets and the Costcos that keep prices at such rock bottom levels that it leaves you astronomically shocked on how their ridiculous retail system ever manages a profit.

I remember the first time I visited a Wal-Mart store I greedily bought a basic GE telephone set for a dollar. Honestly, how does anyone manage to make a telephone handset for a buck? Granted its a product thats pretty much unchanged over the last 40 years, and that it has now regressed into the lower strata of modern day must haves. I still needed one because my apartment on the 5th floor does not have a doorbell and that the poor soul standing below has now way of letting me know of his presence unless he calls me. How about a 20 inch TV for $69.99? Just to give you a rather oblique comparison- My dad bought a Solidaire TV in 1987 on a 6 year loan from Readymoney Shoppe. And yes, its still the only TV we have at home.

Its mind boggling to imagine how Wal-Mart has perfected this business model to the minutest element on its way to trouncing other dollar churners like Exxon-Mobil and General Electric to become the LARGEST ever company in all of human history. And I read somewhere that about 9 bucks out of every hundred dollars spent in retail shopping in America is done at Wal-Mart; and that its annual income in 2005 alone (approximately $285 billion) would clobber the GDP’s of countries like Israel, Malaysia, Hong-Kong and Denmark. Well, at least statistically speaking.

Sigh.