Have to tell you this ......

Today I found a gorgeous Rajasthani umbrella in the Dilli Hut market. I kicked myself for not buying one in Jaipur last trip, so I was not letting this sucker go! So I bargained extra hard with the guy (Bhwani I think he said his name was) for it, real hard, walked away twice, "ahhhhhhh don't give me the Gora price" even escaped my lips ... and, when he asked me for my best price I dropped it by 1,000 rupees, to which he laughed .. nervously of course! I was determined not to be screwed just cause I'm a blonde white woman .. but I was also determined to get that bloody umbrella! And I do need to finesse my bargaining skills, I'm so crap at it!

Anyway he came down, so did I, he came down again and I went up ..... but only by 500 roops from my initial offer and, in the end got my brolly! Whooooohooooooooooooooo!

Only ....

Imagine my horror when I opened my purse and realised I was short of cash!!!!!

" Not to worry madam" said Bhwani, "there is an atm over there" .. so, he followed me to the atm with the aforementioned, and now neatly parceled, umbrella tucked under his arm.

Ohoh .. the atm wasn't accepting my card! I tried 3 times.

" Not to worry madam .. there is another atm, next door to the market at the filling station" (petrol station). So he duly followed me out the market gates, still wielding MY umbrella.

Of course there was an "out of order" sign swinging from the atm door wasn't there!??

Rather embarrassed, after I'd seriously beaten him down in price and now couldn't pay (still at a ridiculous mark up no doubt), I told him it was not meant to be and I'd buy it another day.

"No madam this is my last day at the market". So I asked for Bhwani's mobile number and pretended to put it in my phone and told him I would call him and arrange for purchase another time.

There was no way he was losing this sale and no way he was buying my lame excuse to get rid of him, he asked me how short I was, agreed to take what I had, give me the umbrella and come to my house tonight or tomorrow to collect the balance! (clearly I paid too much!)

Never would THAT happen home .. imagine going to Myer/Marks & Spencer or Macy's and asking them to hire a taxi, find your house (45mins away) and collect the shortfall in the rrp!!!! So then I had to ask for his mobile phone number again! He was obviously so desperate for the sale that he didn't comment that I'd already (pretended) to store his mobile number!!!!!

So I had my driver give him instructions to the general vicinity of my suburb, raced back to the car with my new umbrella, zoomed off to school to pick up the munchkins, and on the way sms'd him my address.

I thought I'd got myself a real bargain when he didn't turn up the next day, sent him a text and didn't hear from him. But the following day he called, apologised profusely for letting me down (huh???????????) and promised to be there at 10am .. sure enough, 10am the next day Bhwani pulled up in an auto rickshaw, I paid him the balance and he left a very smiley man (definitely paid too much!)

And I, finally and after a bit of hoohar, have one rather lovely Rajasthani umbrella .. only if you see the fog here right now (see my earlier blog) you'd wonder why I bought it in the middle of a Delhi winter!

3 weeks later, we're having the most sublime weather .. our first bbq, of probably many and I pull out my new brolly, which looked huge in the shop ... in my garden it will look out of place unless I have 15 of them!!!! (pic is of friend's children & an ayah at the bbq)