A brush of opulence

Past two days have been different, a treat to senses I must say. Yesterday was Akshay Tritiya, so I purchased gold for the first time in my life, in fact it was the first time I had seen pure gold. I recall once arguing with my mom that "why are people crazy about gold?", my mom replied with some irritation, "When you don't understand anything, then either ask question about it in inquisitive manner or just shut up!", I got my reply yesterday. It might be the psychological factor of spending money that could buy two designer denims and get in return a tiny metal, then respect for it is bound to go up. Whatever it is, but when you look at the yellow glitter of the tiny metal, there is a strange charisma of it, no wonder why blood has been splattered all across ages in pursuit of this gift of nature. Sudden burst of having money gushes through the spine, despite the fact that I did not have any money left after buying it.

Cut to today, I went to BOSE store to purchase my long time fantasy and the least expensive thing they offer - In Ear Headphones. Firstly as soon as I entered the store there was a prompt sales man, he walked up to me and greeted so politely that I was taken back, much like when you travel by air for the first time and and you are taken back the cosmetic politeness of air staff. I told him what I wanted, he obliged and gave me a demo of the headphones, everything it seemed was perfected, right from the store merchandising to their choice of demo song - it was "hotel california (live)" , while listening the song, I closed my eyes and it felt like the music was pumped directly in my head, had I kept my eyes closed for a little while longer I could have differentiated between notes from all 6 strings of the guitars. It goes unsaid that I was impressed, better word would be smitten and then they suggested me to try BOSE QC3, which were priced 4 times of what I was there to pay for, needless to say I passed. However I went ahead and made my payment, soon after that there was a guy who wanted to buy their home entertainment system (more on that guy in next post), they offered him a BOSE experience in a mini theatre they had, since there was some time in my billing they asked me to attend it as well. I said "why not!". It was a small room with 4 "large" Bose speakers, and a projection screen, the presentation movie went well and I thought it was OK till it reached the point when they explained how is BOSE different from the world. I quote the narrator, "a real movie experience is when you feel that you are in the scene", they showed a scene from a Russel Crowe starer pirate movie, where the crew shoots cannons, With the first shot I could feel a cannon whooshing past my left ear, I chill ran up my spine and suddenly I could feel another cannon dropping right in front of me, I was spellbound. I have been to several great movie theatres, but this small room gave me an audio-visual treat second to none. Then the presenter came and removed the lid from those "large" speakers and I jumped in my chair, there were 8 small cuboid speaker of the size no larger than those old glass paper weights we all had seen in sarkari offices. Nothing more was required from their store now, when they said "better sound through research", I totally agreed, just wanted to change it to "best sound through, check that heavenly sound through research or whatever magic you do"..

I remember when I was young (10 yrs or so) , I was told branded and designer stuff is just same as the local stuff we get on our nukkad, they are just packaged nicely to fool the rich people. Well, whoever told me that if I meet him now, it would have serious repercussions. First of all rich people are not fools, the very fact of their opulence makes their being smart redundant. Second of all, expensive stuff is not always packaged good, mostly it has something which is exclusive, someone who has not experienced a BOSE would never know it, because it is unmatched.

While I was leaving the BOSE store, the sales man said "Congratulations! sir", I was again surprised, "why?", promptly came the reply, "You are now a proud owner of BOSE product". I wondered is it that big a deal? Perhaps it is. For the first time in my life I felt rich after spending almost all the money I had in my bank :)

Who ever said, "Money can't buy you happiness" was bullshitting big time.

PS: Koi udhaar de do, I am broke :)