Crowds flock to the Big Bazaar for The Great Exchange Offer.
To the uninitiated, the Big Bazaar is India’s version of a discount department store with a slogan of “Is se sasta aur accha kahin nahi!” (No where cheaper or better than this!). It’s a two story shopping mecca that stocks everything from food to fridges, and cookware to clothes.
Over the past few years the Big Bazaar has been spreading throughout India at an alarming rate. There are now over 50 stores. Greater Mumbai questionably boasts no less than seven of them.
I first experienced the Big Bazaar in Calcutta, where my friends and I went on to develop a love/hate relationship with it. There’s one located right next to the Hiland Park apartment complex where we lived. As it was the closest thing we were to find to a western supermarket, it was the most convenient place for us to shop.
Unfortunately, it also attracted hoards of Indians. They came from far and wide to sit and socialise out the front of it in the evenings, when it took on a carnival like atmosphere, and battle for bargains inside.
On Sundays, the Big Bazaar was to be avoided at all costs unless you wanted to become trapped in there for an hour amongst the disorderly and riotous queue at the checkout.
Alarmingly, apparently this is no design flaw.
As explained by Kishore Biyani, the creator of the Big Bazaar, in his book It Happened In India (in the chapter For God, Country, and Big Bazaar). “People often complain that Big Bazaar outlets look very crowded. But few realise that it is consciously designed to look like that…For Indians, shopping is entertainment. As Indians, we like to bump into people, chat, gossip and eat, all while we shop”.
The atmosphere of the Big Bazaar is even better summed up by Shivanand Mankekar, in the same book, as “an environment of chaos where people were literally freaking out”.
As fate would have it, a Big Bazaar is located in the east side of the suburb where I now live in Mumbai, making it the logical place to start shopping for things for the apartment.
Far from the chaos of the Hiland Park Big Bazaar in Calcutta, this Big Bazaar in Kandivali was deceptively quiet the day we visited. Its setting was tranquil and leafy, with a noticeable absence of people lounging around outside. Even the checkouts didn’t require a one hour (or even five minute!) wait to get through.
There’s no doubt however that the Big Bazaar would show its true colours, hinted at by the metal detection scanners at the entrance, if we were to return the following day. A mammoth sale was planned, with gates opening at 8am.
All around town were billboards with promises of Sab Kuch Milega (you’ll get everything) and Sabse Saste Teen Din (the cheapest three days). In case this wasn’t enough to whip the Indian population into a paagal (mad) frenzy, inside the Times of India was a four page supplement containing details of all the exciting bargains that would be on offer.
The first time this promotion was held in 2006 for only one day, stores were closed throughout the country due to overcrowding. This resulted in people throwing stones at the shutters in frustration. A series of other bizarre incidents also took place.
As documented in It Happened In India (in the chapter Made in India), some customers tried to bribe the security guards to let them inside Mumbai’s Lower Parel store. In the Kandivali store, customers fell head over heals to claim their share of the Buy One Get One Free offer on Basmalti rice. Apparently the situation deteriorated to such an extent that one of the staff members was injured and had to be rushed to hospital. The media covered the Sabse Sasta Din almost to the fervor of a one day cricket match. Television channels beamed images of the live crowd, turning the event into a topic of national importance.
In 2007, to avoid a repeat of the crowd management issues, people from the operations department visited popular temples across the country. There they studied the behaviour of the large number of devotees to gain insights into how they’re managed. Procedures were then put in place across Big Bazaar stores accordingly.
The Big Bazaar certainly has no shortages of procedures. There’s bag searches and metal detection scans upon entry. Photography is prohibited though out the store. And upon exit, receipts must be presented for examination and hole punching by security.
This last procedure particularly confounded my friends and I, as all bags are heat sealed upon checkout — effectively preventing any matching of the contents against the items listed on the receipt.
During times when the insanity of the Big Bazaar all got to much, my friends and I in our sillier moments would take as many outrageous photos inside as possible before being reprimanded by staff.
Fortunately this trip to the Big Bazaar was relatively uneventful. We even came away with a free Big Bazaar calendar to remind us of the Big Bazaar all year round!
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I love love love love love Big Bazaar. Its the K mart and Big W of India. I alway feel a big home sick when I go to Big Bazaar, but in that good way you know?
Haha, it sure is!
I don’t know what it is about the Big Bazaar but it lures me back time after time — no matter how many times I curse and swear and say I’m never going back to such a crazy place, I can’t resist!!! It’s such a fascinating snapshot of India.
Plus, Indians like validation by peers. Say, if there are two shops lookin similar side-by-side, most customers will choose the one which is more crowded, assuming that it has the more allures & (perhaps) better quality prompting return customers!
P.S. BTW in case you’re wondering why you’re getting so much traffic on this blog more than a year after you wrote it, you should probably thank Naomi Canton, in whose ‘Expat on the Edge’ blog at Hindustantimes.com a reader referred to your blog in his comment!
That’s an interesting point about the validation. I’ve always known it’s a sign of a good Indian restaurant!
And thanks for explaining about the blog too! I actually only started it a week ago in its current form – I had a personal blog somewhere else but I thought I would make it public, with a few changes. I’ve been backdating my posts, trying to get it all filled in and up to date. But I didn’t expect any traffic so soon! I’m totally unprepared! lol. I do read Naomi’s very fascinating blog, so I know who you mean!
hiiiiiiiiiii
I love D-mart over Big bazaar! Dmart is sooooo cheap! I bought some really nice dress materials from there….it was shopping heaven! I love it how our aussie dollar goes sooo much further in india! And that equals to more shopping! hehe
Oh we are so alike! I bought two lots of dress material from the Kandivali West D Mart recently. Only 550 rupees each, and such nice embroidery. I was rapt. But it’s my first time buying dress material and getting my suits stitched. Previously, I thought it was so much effort to have to go to (as you know, tailoring of clothes isn’t so common in Australia) but I couldn’t resist the pretty fabric.