A lesson in salesmanship

A strange character had been calling on the leading film and tele-drama directors in the recent past.

Once he meets a film or a tele-drama director, this character would ask the latter: “Sir, do you know that you incur big ‘losses’ by trying to cut down on expenses?”

A surprised director would naturally ask: “What do you mean by cutting down expenses?”

The stranger: “Sir, you ought to know that you are catering to an enlightened audience today. Our film goers, tele-drama viewers cannot be easily hoodwinked or deceived!”

“Hoodwinking? What is the trick we are playing on our fans?”

“It’s like this, “the strange character explains. “Take this scene for an example. Father of the family returns home in the evening tired and grim after the day’s hard work to find the entire family with their eyes glued to the TV. None of them takes any notice of his arrival. How would an angry father react to the ‘don’t care’ attitude of his wife and children?  He would raise the TV and dash it on the floor! But you don’t care to shoot an incident like that because it would cost the price of a TV!  You want to save money at the cost of deviating from gritty realism!”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Sir, I can help you to make such scenes realistic at a minimal cost… I have a large stock of TVs, refrigerators and washing machines of various models and sizes. Of course, they are not in working order. I can offer them all at a reasonable price so that they would come handy whenever the need arises for battering them into wreckage to give a realistic touch to certain scenes!”

“But how on earth did you collect such a large stock of TVs, fridges and washing machines?”

“Sir, it’s nothing to be surprised about if you know the amount of electric goods like TVs the people in certain city suburbs had to discard after their houses went under flood waters for several days. I thought it was a crime to condemn these appliances as junk. So I collected them all to put them to some sort of good use.” He adds after a brief pause. “After all, Sir, we too should make a living!”