How to buy home appliances in New Delhi

I like shopping in India. It's the bargaining you see, the haggling. A lot of people don't like shopping here for that very reason buy once you get used to it, it's addictive.

When you're indoors and you're wearing a scarf and a hat and five layers of thermal clothing and you think you really ought to go and buy a heater, you don't just pop to your local department store or electrical superstore.* You more often than not go to the market, where you'll find shops selling the stuff.

The deal is simple. You'll find most of the wares spilling out onto the street. After some discussion you'll choose one and then the fun begins. In this case, the seller bargained hard. He wouldn't respond to my discounted price. He just shook his head.

But when the invoice came he had written my price on it but not his. For whatever reason - not wanting to lose face, not wanting to lose a sale, or not wanting his peers to know - he chose not to say it out loud.

Naturally, when we got it home, despite being packaged perfectly and with official tape sealing the box, there was a big dent in it. But it worked.

And sometimes that's really all that matters.

*There are a couple of larger electrical outlets in Delhi. One has the ambiguous tag line: 'Nothing like anything'. Splendid.