For all of you who are not from Delhi, The Times of India has started a fad called the Dilli Dambola. It is part of the Delhi Times, which is their daily magazine. They publish a Tambola ticket every Sunday in that magazine. Tambola- like Lotto, Housie, Bingo etc. The ticket needs to be played everyday of the week as they take out 4 numbers daily, so the contest ends on the next Saturday. If one manages to strike out all the numbers during the course of the week, the sponsors are to be called up and they pick up the ticket from your residence and give you a prize( I as given a gift voucher for Rupees 300 at the Chor Bizzare restaurant)and an invite for playing the Grand Tambola on the coming sunday.
I went to play the Grand Tambola at The Grand Hotel today with my son..he had done the dirty work of cutting the entire lot of numbers. We arrived at stipulated time and were handed over two tickets, one for each game. We were one of the countless number of people who had come there with the hope of picking up some prizes. The time mentioned was at 11 am and true to the IST, nothing seemed to happen for a while..the seating for for a couple of hundred people, whereas there must have been upward of a thousand. The weather was miserable with no sun and it was bitterly cold outside in the lawns. Everyone was standing and I must compliment the crowd for being rather decent and patient. There was some coffee going around, which seemed a good idea, but the lineups put one off. So one generally stood in a corner and wondered when would the whole process begin and if the idea of coming there was a wise one in the first place. Some activity started at about 1130 am and a very loud and over chirpy host started proceedings. The whole game was to be conducted by a celebrity- former Miss India Ms Manpreet Brar made an appearance when we were well into the game. The game itself was a damp squib and the host made a hash of the entire game by badly calling out the numbers. There were only two prizes announced for the full houses- the first one was to take a 29’’ Philips TV and the second one was to get a 14’’ TV. At the end there were five winners, so they decided the eventual winner by the slogan you had written. There were two 14’’ TVs given out and the unlucky two of the five were given more food vouchers. It seemed pretty unfair that only a handful were rewarded for being some patient and spending a sunday morning for such a small prize.
The second game more or less followed the same pattern, the difference being in the prizes, which were some furniture. The whole experience made one feel made a sucker of and the hype that was created was more as a sales gimmick. I have been an avid reader of the Times of India, but would like to forget this episode in a hurry. It has definitely left a bad taste in the mouth, though I am looking for to using the food voucher! There have been other very good programmes run by this paper before, but I feel that the current one is by far their worst. The general impression one got from the crowd was that they felt cheated for coming there, but then I think avarice knows no bounds. For, one already has been rewarded at home once, and then there is the chance that one may land up picking up the TV!! Will I play again..you bet! Not that you will catch me at the Grand..no way!! I will gladly take the food voucher though..thank you!