On a long leisurely walk towards Gandhi Bazaar yesterday evening, we ventured into this pretty-looking ancient house which said “Bimba, the Art Ashram”. We turned out to be the only visitors in the place. There were some four “shopkeepers”, led by this guy with a funny beard called Deepak. Deepak was to lecture us for the next half hour about how art is a “celebration of life” and that is what his shop sought to “celebrate”. At the end of it we were so minidfucked that we went out without really looking closely at any of the pieces on display.
While we were walking out, we realized why the store had so few visitors – we’re sure it doesn’t get any “repeat customers”. People would have had their brains bored out so badly on their first visit to the store by Deepak’s lectures that I doubt if anyone would dare to return. And I doubt if the store does much sales also, given that Deepak’s lectures don’t even give visitors an opportunity to check out the stuff properly.
Another Lemma – in a store that claims noble intentions of some sort, you are likely to get less value for your money than you would at a store being run for pure commercial purposes. I leave the proof as an exercise to the reader.