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Thrift and Triple R

 Thrift and Triple R

 Dinesh K Kapila

We are a nation of thrift across income and social classes. Stories abound of our love for thrift, squeezing the last bit out of toothpaste tubes to reusing old undergarments to clean cars and old shirts as dusters are there across WhatsApp University. Then gifting and regifting is also an art, you receive the exotic chocolates wrapped in a beautiful box and well why gain weight, there is still a box in the refrigerator, pass it on graciously to the next housewarming party or a get together! Sometimes in some upper class households it’s a game of constantly passing on after discreetly after assessing its cost and quality and the contents. It keeps them suitably engaged to and encourages the Triple R concept of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Though I doubt the votaries of the Triple R concept will agree !  but yes, I have found the visiting card placed inside the box to be different from the person who gifted it. The passing on person must check this too.

 

Then there is a person, a nodding acquaintance we do have, who, after retirement from a prestigious position, has a busy time coaching and teaching and is into the circuit. Well, it’s a small world, he went to a jeweler, and the jeweler knew someone who knew someone who knew me. My acquaintance has a reasonable collection of memorabilia and amongst them were supposedly silver ones. Running short of space presumably, this guy went off to assess what was the silver worth. I think though in all probability  he wanted to at least know its value, we all give much importance to the cost of what we receive as a gift. Well, contrary to what some so called corporate bodies and institutions told him, they turned out to be silver plated or a mix of silver plus other metals. Some other gifts also attracted very low value. This was surely one opportunity lost to reduce or recycle  or reuse. I wish my acquaintance had just cherished them rather than tried to arrive at a value or to recycle them, the disappointment would be immense.    

 

Then we come across other innovations. It takes all sorts to make this world or to find entrepreneurial opportunities. A friend shared his experience. I certainly found it very innovative. So I decided to look at it as a start up but with a difference as it had a rather different business and product, and a successful one at that. My friend visited Aminabad in Lucknow recently for purchasing curtain material. There was a shop without a board where people were handling over goods of different types and taking cash. It seemed to be doing rather brisk business. My friend found his curiosity increasing watching the coming and going this led to his asking the person at the counter of the establishment about his business. Well, the counter guy was honest and straightforward, the establishment was purchasing gifts, memento etc received by its customers and reselling them to the original sellers or otherwise finding suitable buyers. But mostly it was recycled to the actual original shops . they were purchasing everything and even non perishable items including dry fruits and then baskets of imported apples and other fruits too. From all and sundry. And the assessment was fast and the transactions concluded in real time. Everyone was happy in the process, the seller as he did not require the same item again and again or more of the same, the shopkeeper and the original seller. Suited everyone ! talk of customer delight here it was business delight and I daresay in consonance with the spirit of RRR and being environment friendly.

 

Another example strikes me. I had a person known to not only me but me father too. Very erudite, accomplished, he was always on the go and addressing seminars and doling out dollops of knowledge. Well, my father went to meet him and came away with a box of glasses as a gift. Dad was puzzled as to why the gift but then out of courtesy accepted it. Then I went to meet him. I too got a box of glasses as a gift, and well, so did my father in law. I at least had no reason to be given a gift but it was given to me very graciously. Well, we slowly realized that he had been obviously receiving a lot of gifts, now just how many boxes of glasses a person can keep. So the recycling started and well, we did pass it on too. What were we to do with them.

 

Thrifty guys we are. Committed to thrift, the whole lot of us. That is how we are and well, this should hold us in good stead as the years go by.

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