The guy who sold Khaled Hosseini

I work at Gulshan-2 circle and I think I have told you about the flying hawkers already. Once you are stuck at an intersection, you will have people walking around the cars selling everything from colourful balloons, plasticware, popcorn and fresh flowers.

And once in a while you find a “flying library” – usually men with stacks of books, selling the latest bestsellers, from Dan Brown thrillers to Jhumpa Lahiri coming of age novels.

As I eagerly buy books and hardly read them, I was intrigued and opted for two Khaled Hosseini novels. I picked them with joy and with joy the salesman told me, that each book was originally 800 Taka and especially for me he was considering 400 Taka. Not the best price, as the shiny covers contain photocopied pages of the original books and were sold for about 120 Taka a few years back.

As you have to start out low I offered less then 200 Taka per book and wanted to see, where we end up. My last offer was 400 Taka in total. With great dismay he rejected my final offer. I wasn’t depending on getting those two books, apologized to have wasted his time and walked off. Instantly I was being yelled after, only to hear another offer from the salesman, wanting to tangle me up. Now he was wasting my time!

I explained to him that 400 Taka was my last offer. If he agrees he can sell his books, if not we will just part ways. He still asked for 20 Taka extra. I refused, got onto a Rickshaw and was about to drive off when he agreed. So I ended up with two novels from Khaled Hosseini for 400 Taka, around 3.80 Euros, that I bought weeks ago. Not a single page has been read, to my shame…