The high cost saved me

THE HIGH COST SAVED ME

Once I had an opportunity to visit the famous ‘Taj Mahal Palace Hotel’ in Mumbai just opposite to the Gateway of India. Impressed by the shopping arcade inside the hotel I decided to have a look at the beautiful showrooms around its periphery on the ground floor. Various famous trade marks had their individual showrooms in which they had displayed best of their items making it appear more like a museum. Since I was fond of pens I entered one of the showroom of ‘Mont Blanc’. Each pen was displayed like a jewellery with focussed lighting on it to attract the customer. The price tags were displayed in sparkling steel numerals. I decided to purchase one of the selected pens whose cost was displayed as Rs 1574.00 which appeared quite reasonable commensurate to its quality. I ordered the person standing there to pack it handing over my credit card for the payment while I continued watching the other pens.

After sometime he came back to me saying that the credit card is not able to pay the amount as has limits of payment upto Rs 1.5 Lacs only.

“So what’s the matter there is enough money in it?” I asked him curiously.

“No sir the cost of the pen is exceeding the amount?”he replied.

“How?”I tried to clarify from him.

“Sir because the cost is Rs one lac fifty seven thousand and four hundred only which is seven thousand four hundred more than what your credit card allows.”

It was then I realised that the cost of the pen is Rs 157400 and there is no decimal before the two zeros indicating the paisas.

Oh God! the high cost saved me today otherwise I would have lost about Rs 1.5 lac had the cost been Rs 1.5 lac or below.

Later I realised that there were pens displayed for Rs 15 Lacs also which I had assumed for Rs 15000/- The high cost of the pen had saved me.

After coming out from the hotel the world appeared so cheap.