This ‘my pet shop’ is just what your pet shop shouldn’t be. The façade is quite impressive, an Air Conditioned retail outlet with neatly arranged pet foods and accessories. The person in charge is always there with a ready smile, a clipped accent and articulate manner of experession. There’s lots of imported stuff around. But most of it is what an Indian pet lover would never need. In fact this shop isn’t of relevance to the person who is all in love with his birdie, dog or cat. To start with they sell small cages for budgerigars and parakeets for Rs. 2800 upwards.
In most pet shops in Bombay(Chembur, Andheri, Dadar, Bandra, Crawford market) you get a big neat looking cage for Rs. 800. These are complete with extra perches and food bowls. Coming to my personal experience., I liked a bird toy at the shop. It was a cute, well designed and imported from USA. I found it a bit expensive at 700 bucks, I bought it. When I reached home I was disappointed to know that it was too big to fit through the door of my bird cage. And I have a fairly big cage.
Then it dawned on me that it wouldn’t fit through most cages you find in homes in India. In fact it wouldn’t fit in the cages put on display at the pet shop I brought it from! Since it was useless to me I went back to the shop hoping to get my money back. The person in charge refused to take it back. I convinced him that it was useless to me and that I was even willing to buy something else like bird food in exchange. The guy flatly told me that it wasn’t their policy to take goods once sold. He said that he saw no reason to be accommodating bcos it was my mistake that I bought it in the first place. It was clear to me that I was conned.
That thing wasn’t suitable for 99% of the bird cages in India. That guy had already ordered stocks from USA but found no buyers. I was relatively inexperienced when it came to having my own pet bird. So I was the perfect bakra for him. Once he passed it on to me he was happily counting his cash. Of course he swore that they never sell things that customers don’t need. But reality was the other way round. And all through he was one hell of a smooth talker who kept repeating that he was an educated guy and not a Laala. But a Laala isn’t half as devious as him. If you visit this pet shop you are sure to be treated like a dog. Or worse.