Mandi ‘09

Background

Mandi is unique exercise in NITIE where all the students of NITIE junior batch go to Mumbai Streets to sell educational toys. The toys are made by an NGO called “Navnirmiti”. The money collected from this exercise is given to the NGO. This allows the students to interact with normal people who are their customers, convince them to buy the product. The tag line of the event is

Socho Becho

Becho Seekho

Seekho Socho

Before The Mandi Day

I decided to team up with Shiwam. Some of us from section C decided to go together. Since I was the only Mumbaikar in the group, I was asked about the places to visit. I thought Dadar station, Shivaji Park, Lower Parel and Phoenix mills compound was a good area to sell the stuff. The day before Mandi we got total 20 toys – 3 Big Jodos, 7 small Jodos, 2 Rangometry kits and 8 Tangrams. We also got Mandi T-shirts who was designed by a group in my batch who have made start up company in T-shirt design (smart people aint they? Every fest in college requires T-shirt, no?)

Mandi Day

All the students gathered in the badminton court for the Mandi Inaugural by 10 o’clock, all wearing the Mandi T-shirts and Nehru topi. Everyone was excited about the whole event. By the time I reached the function, the all the guests including Priti Jhangiyani had come. After speeches by everyone (which includes our Director, by that time I realized the old gentleman who comes for exercise in the same Gym as I go, is the Director of our college ;)), we got ready for our departure. There were three buses arranged, so it was not possible for all the students to get on board. In fact, our bus so overcrowded that the driver refused to start the bus. He wanted at least 15 people who were standing to get down. It was nice gesture by people who were standing initially to simply leave the bus without much complaining. We left NITIE at around 12 o’clock. The bus first went to Goregaon and then headed towards the Andheri. As I said earlier, I had planned to go to Dadar first, but since there was too much traffic, it took us 1.5 Hrs to reach Andheri. I thought it would be too late if we go to Dadar by bus. I thought we could sell the toys near Andheri for some time and after having lunch go to Dadar, Parel area.

Once we got down, we split and went in different direction. Shiwam and I started searching for our customers. We started explaining people about the toys, about the NGO, the educational perspective. We kept walking towards Vile Parle for some time. After a while we came back to Andheri with no success. There were 2 groups selling toys near the same spot where we left the bus. We also stood there for some time and got our very first customer!!! They were 2 guys with middle class look. Initially I felt that they had just come to check the toy, but it turned out that they actually bought the small Jodo worth Rs. 125. Then we saw that some groups were selling toys near the bus stop, so we joined them. We were able to sell one more toy. During this time, we met different types of people, one who wanted to buy the toys but not at that time, he took the phone number of the NGO, another guy asked the price of the “set” (all three types of toys), when I told him the price of each article and set, he just walked away!!!

Some time went, I felt that saturation point for this area was reached, we moved towards Andheri Station. We found Siddharth, Swapnil (two of them), and Ashwin selling toys opposite McDonald’s. We had realized that of there is a group of 4-6 students with straw models in their hand, people usually get curious and come to them. We used the same strategy and joined them. We were there for half an hour more when a police van came and the policeman started putting each of the students in the Van. Swapnil, Shiwam and myself managed to get away. We went into the Andheri station and called up Prof. Prasad, he advised us to show our “undertaking” receipt we had to the cops. Sudhakar and Suresh went to the cops for negotiations. Fortunately they let everyone go without any penalty, but they warned us to leave the area. After having lunch, we were thinking about the new place to go for selling. I asked everyone to come with me to Lower Parel, but they wanted to go Bandra. So I continued my journey alone to Lower Parel.

It had been a long time since I visited my office. Though some of my best buddies were missing, it was nice to be back there. I showed the toys to them, our COO, Girish Nair bought big Jodo for his 2 kids (or for the whole Netcore family!!! ) and Sumant bought another Jodo for his relative. I did not force anyone to buy, I mean I didn’t want them to buy for my sake. From there, I went to Grant Road where I met my boss. She bought the Rangometry and a Jodo for her daughter. We had a nice discussion about B-plan (I finally told her about my Webaroo stint). Since we had to return money and remaining toys on Monday, I decided to go home. That was the end of my Mandi ‘09

Experience and Suggestions

• I have been an introvert for life, and I usually don’t initiate conversations with strangers. With Mandi, I had to start speaking with people when they were walking in their own frame of mind. It can be really difficult thing for someone like me. I kept trying though.
• May be we could have sold more toys, had we gone to South Mumbai earlier, it would have been much easier to convince rich and affluent people about the NGO cause and sell.
• The unfortunate incident where 4 of my batch mates were held by police should not be repeated next year with my juniors. I heard this had happened last year also, but no one had informed us beforehand.
• We donated the commission we got from Mandi to Rotract club in NITIE.