Hi! I'm MDG.
I am an American woman in love with an Indian man. I moved to Bangalore, India July 25th, 2010, and am happy to be sharing my experiences with you!
Please don't hesitate to comment or contact me directly. I love both! 
Indo-Pak Groceries
We have ONE grocery store in the area that sells Indian goodies. It’s always a trip to go there (trip in the funny sense and trip in the sense that it is a bit of a drive too!) because there’s always a laugh to be had afterwards. The store is not owned by Indians, but rather Pakistanis. They are very sweet whenever we come in, and always offering MIM and I a free drink. (In my experiences, whether they are Indian, Pakistani, or Middle Eastern, I am always offered a drink from the coolers. Is this a tradition of some kind?) Anyways, the funny thing about the store owners is that they will go to all ends to make things appear different than they are. I am not used to this!
Case in point: One time we came in looking for a kurta for myself. There were only a few, and not very good ones, so we asked if they were planning on getting any more in.
“Oh yes! We are getting a large shipment in very soon. Stop back after a week,”
So we stop back after a week and ask about the shipment. They then told us it hadn’t arrived yet and to come back in 3 or 4 days. A week later we stop in and ask again. Their response; “It came in, but everything already sold out!”
Hmmm…Pretty hard to believe since for the past two years every time we stop in we are the only ones there.
On another visit, they were out of our favorite parathas. “We just sold out,” they tell us. Emphasis on the just. “We will get more soon, stop back!” They’ve never restocked those parathas. My guess is we were the ones that bought the last batch.
One time we asked if they had a certain Hindi movie to rent, and their response was, “Someone just came in and bought it.” I guess MIM and I always show up at slow times of the day; seems like we always miss the rush!
And finally, MIM noticed their cooler was broken. The door was ajar, which had been ajar for sometime, leaving the drinks warm. MIM mentioned the door to the owner, and his quick response in Urdu was how the handyman was on his way this minute to come fix it. Many weeks later, it’s still ajar, the drinks are still sadly warm.
I don’t mind it really, it gives MIM and I a good chuckle and it’s actually kind of interesting to me how people can think so fast on their feet. If someone asked me a question point blank, I’ll always give an honest answer, even if it made me look bad. “No, we do not have that movie”, “Yeah, that cooler’s been broken for awhile, I just haven’t felt like getting it fixed”, “No, we won’t be getting in any more kurtas. You’re SOL.”
When you’re used to being in a place that is so cut-throat like I’m assuming Pakistan is, I guess you get used to doing business that way. I’m sure business owners aren’t the most honest here as well, but this is my first experience at what it might be like shopping in India or Pakistan – at least from how MIM has described it to me.
The fact that the older store owner writes all of the purchases down in pencil and uses a calculator to sum up your order (even though there is a cash register right next to him) will keep me coming back, no matter how offended I might become when I’m continually lied to. It’s just so darn cute!
He should just get a computer instead of the calculator. And you’re right, some store owners would never admit they’re out of this or that. They would just make excuses. That’s so shop owner like!
No pictures of the store? I would love to see how Asian Grocery stores are abroad! I’ve only seen a couple of them so far!
Oh and Happy New Year!
Ramit, Sometimes he just adds the bill up using elementary subtracting, crossing out a number and carrying it over, and we just stand there and watch. He’s very old, so I’m assuming that’s the way he’s done it all his life and doesn’t want to learn the cash register, which is what his son uses when he is there.
Sorry, I don’t have pics of the store! For some reason I thought you lived here. (where are you?) But hey, you’re not missing much! It’s a tiny store attached to a small plaza with the name Indo-Pak Groceries on the outside and some Bollywood posters in the windows. It’s very tidy inside, unlike the one I used to frequent in Colorado when I lived there. Renting movies from them is a disaster though. When you think you’re actually renting the real thing and instead getting some junk taped in a theater with horrible sub titles!
LOL you gave me good laugh for the day! It dose sound fun and amusing I think well I know that I would do the same thing keep coming back even though I WAS getting lied to just for the shear fun of going thier. I WOULD love to find Indian store where I live just to visit it to see what it was like.
Many people here believe what people say to them. But coming from the same society it was easy for me to spot him. The first time he lied to me I didn’t catch but then it became very obvious from there on. Everytime we go there the owner lies about one thing or the other. We just laugh at it because its the only ‘desi’ store around here so we don’t have any other option but to listen to his lies.
LOL… That was hilarious!! It reminded me of the time I bought my cell phone from an Indian shop. They told me they had “just” sold the last one of the model I wanted but guess what?…The stock was “just” about to be replenished …if I could “just” come back in two hours and they would have it then. Two hours later and I am back in the shop. No cell phone in view but they were adamant that it was “on its way”. Eventually after an extra hour and a few calls to their “supplier”, it did arrive!! But what happened was, as I learned about it later from my friends, they obviously did not have the cell phone in stock and that the stock was nowhere about to be replenished. However, when they saw me coming back in the shop, they called one of the other shops selling that mobile and ordered it from them, a practice apparently quite common in the Middle East when Indian/Pakistani shop owners do not want to lose a client and.. are about to make a huge profit on a newcomer’s purchase!!!
haha! Thanks for sharing Fabio! Guess it’s universal…