Free Samples

Come January and sales representatives from publishers come to my office, carrying bundles of books in big canvas bags, or holding them by the tough thread that holds them together. The watchman doesn’t bother about getting their names entered because they’re unable to liberate their limbs from the heavy wares they are lugging, to sign, and he’s illiterate. If they were saleswomen, I think they would have carried the bundles on their heads. “Or,” said Bai Goanna, joining Shri Husband to peer over my shoulder to see what I was typing, “they’d use a second-hand foldable pram to wheel the stuff from their scooter to your office. Women are smart.” I agreed silently about the smart bit, but prams? Doesn’t occur to her that some of these marketing types might come in four-wheelers, mostly the bread-box Maruti Omni that none else wants? Folding prams, come to think of it, are practical solutions to take to the market, a trolley-substitute, see? Then again, anything on wheels would be defeated on the way to my office; like any decent path in India, it is strewn with pebbles, gravel, twigs and every and anything that would rip the tiny metal balls out of a bearing and break a pram into many useless angular pieces. “That sentence,” pointed out Shri Husband, “sounds awful.” He could have used the word ‘inelegant’. I didn’t—never do--- have the courage to say ‘then don’t read it, stay away’. I just ignored him and typed on regardless. Where was I… the publishers send book samples, several per subject per class. Doesn’t sound like much until you do the arithmetic. Take LKG (lower kindergarten, which takes children between 3.5 and 4 years of age, approximately 2.5 feet in height) as an example. The children have to ‘learn’ line drawing. If they are clever, they do patterns and colouring as well. The little ones spend three hours in school, in which, besides doing a page of work, they have to sing a verse, memorize numbers and tell us the names of their grandparents if they have any. How many books do you suppose each child would buy for the year? I have seven SETS of books for pattern writing, joining dots, gluing cotton swabs and reading aloud, each set containing at least ten books. Do we really need so many publishers printing out the same stuff? At nearly the same cost? So many, many ‘samples’ are gifted to each school, with ‘not for sale’ or ‘complimentary copy’ stamped prominently on the front cover or first page. To prevent ‘misuse’. What misuse could one think of for a hundred pattern-writing books? Now, multiply each set by thirty-five students. Go on, do the maths. By the time I see what the teachers are selecting for the fifth standard, I’m exhausted. I’ve watched them go through tables-books, small sums, problems, divisions, decimals and …wait until I tell you about the high school workbooks. The Devnagari script books are, like the script, complicated, with red and blue lines with broad spacing, medium spacing, narrow and very narrow spacing. The mathematics notebooks have squares of varying dimensions: 1 cm square, 1.5 cm square and worse. There are ‘un-ruled’ books, too. Would you believe, there are at least a dozen different kinds of blank-paper books for art. Did I tell you about graph-books? If the government and/or activists are serious about saving the Earth/trees, by law we should be using only slates. Consider this: if a book costs Rs 100, the supplier gives a discount of 30% to the buyer (parent) and another 20% ‘concession in cash’ to the in-between (i.e. school). And schools, the salesperson tells me, do make profit on the sly thus. I’m stupid, he tells me. I agree. Husband and Bai Goanna also agree. For once, we’re on the same page, the three of us. Now, if we dismiss the supplier from the chain and connect directly with the manufacturer, a student can actually buy an item for 40% of the printed price. Nice, no? What is true about books is true about cosmetic products in a more complicated way. When I buy a toothpaste, I’m paying for research done a century ago, plus the cost of the company’s marketing director’s ‘with family’ holiday abroad, the advertisements showing twenty-metre smiles on hoardings on way to the Dabolim airport, the plastic-coated cardboard box and heaven knows what else. Of course, I buy toothpaste for oral hygiene, but that’s not the point here. I need friends who are dentists (or purchase managers in hotels) who can gift me some tubes; am sure they get plenty of free samples. In the hospital where I once worked, receiving free samples was a way of life. The MRs (as Medical Representatives of pharmaceutical companies are known) came in hordes. On days when the patient-footfall was low, MRs occupied all the benches, laptops on their… what else… laps, typing away, resting their bags by their feet. The moment they saw Target Doctor, the computers were speedily put away, the bags swung on backs as they hurried into the clinics. Those bags contained syrups, capsules, pills, little devices to check sugars/salts/whatever was the latest fad. To be given free, of course, with ‘Physician’s sample, not to be sold’ boldly printed across the label. Samples were often accompanied by calendars, pen-stands, watches (now definitely not in vogue), note-pads, mouse-pads, mobile-phone covers and other cute goodies to make prospective prescribers happy and motivated. “What,” asked Bai Goanna, “About foreign trips and sponsored conferences?” “She,” said Shri Husband before I could answer her, “will write about it later, in another piece. That’s beyond the scope of this piece.” Correct for once, I thought, keeping my thought to myself, adjusting my posture to prevent them from reading further what I was typing. Tea-bags, cosmetics, paan-masalas, pickles, choorans and chivda, everything has giveaway samples these days. We pay for them when we buy the actual stuff, never forget. The good quality stuff needs no small introduction. No matter what the marketing gurus say, a Wendell Rodricks (a man I deeply admired, may he rest in peace) product is to be cherished for design and quality. Word of mouth works best. Just wondering, are any free samples involved in big money products like fighter-aircraft, ack-ack guns and submarines? Never read about India getting free helicopters on ‘trial basis’. “You’re ignorant,” chorused Bai Goanna and Shri Husband, adding, “Remember how we damaged the Tejas (train, not plane) seats on its trial runs?” Sigh. Yes. Said and done, I love free samples. Don’t we all?