Last week I had gone to Juhu beach with a few relatives. Those of you who have been there would know about the popular eating area near the beach – most of them making Indian snacks like pani puri, pav bhaji etc. One item which is very famous is the baraf gola. Roughly translated as ice candy, it consists of ice scraped into small bits and then stuck together on a stick. This is then dipped into a thick, sickly sweet syrup of different flavours. Everything ranging from orange, malai, kala khatta, green mango etc is available. The syrup mixture is stored in previously used – and hopefully cleaned – liquor bottles. Still crowds flock there every day to enjoy a moment with their family, friends on the beach and to relish the delicacies being served there.

Now a very interesting thing happens especially in the evenings and night time. There are around 20-30 of these stalls, and each of them sell the same thing (Truth be told, even the food from each stall tastes the same) And since there are a large number of sellers and buyers, the area models a perfect competition. Now since it is a market economy, the forces of supply and demand are bound to work. And that is what is interesting. To attract the customers and survive in the long run, they play the price game. First of all, each stall will have an “employee” carrying a menu card and calling you to try out the food at their stall. Sometimes fights happen when customer are “poached” away from a rival stall. In this market, the customer is king. All you have to do is to go to any stall and ask them how much are they willing to give discount. They will come close and whisper their answer in your ear. And then by haggling some more, you can further reduce the price by a few bucks.

But I wonder the same thing would work in the day time. There are less customers so the pressure on the stall owners to get whatever little of the share would be higher. So do they offer even more discount in the daytime? That is one thing I have yet to discover. So if anyone of you find yourself on Juhu Beach under the bright sunlight, do observe and comment on the supply demand scenario at that time.