If you were looking for a very sophisticated piece of camera equipment or the best deals in photography while on a trip to the United States, you would be directed to B and H in New York.
In Chennai, India, if you made a similar search for electronics, you would most likely be recommeded some shop on Ritchie Street, an area that is several hundred square metres wide, a congested medley of low technology electrical junk rubbing shoulders with MNC computer parts, peripherals and consumables.
Be clear, however, that there is nothing on Ritchie Street that is remotely comparable with B and H in the area of quality. It is just that over the years since the early 1970s, this area comprised of some four major streets coming under the collective tag of "Ritchie Street" has a collection of shops selling just about everything electrical and electronic.
Ritchie Street has a non-descript entrance from the famous Anna Salai (earlier, Mount Road) just a few score metres from the Anna Statue. Just after Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan and India Silk House, the visitor barely notices the narrow lane that leads into the market, which, by some accounts boasts of 900 shops.
In the late 1990s, the reputation of being a market for low and medium quality electrical equipment changed, as the computer boom hit India.
A few shops that sold processors, motherboards, peripherals and consumables made their appearance. Since most equipment used in computers is quite sophisticated, there are few fakes in these items. The falling prices also made it more appearing to sell the material in original than fake them.
In fact, so successful is some business on Ritchie Street that a few shops fell afoul of the others for "undercutting," and prompted the majority to think of arriving at a base price. The rates for most equipment and consumables on Ritchie Street is comparable to the rest of the city, some things come cheaper here, and more important, there is the widest choice.
But beware, there are problems on Ritchie Street, which few shops seem to have addressed with any seriousness.
For one, most people working here are untrained sales and logistics personnel. They have no idea of the sophistication involved in the items on sale - processors, monitors, scanners, printers and other optical devices and drives.
The 'bullock cart' psychology (though one cannot have anything against this beast of burden in principle) is apparently not the best to handle such sophisticated equipment. For one thing, these gadgets start getting the same treatment as bales of hay - they are thrown with considerable force to the ground, as part of unloading with little regard to the damage that their circuits could be damaged. It is rather disconcerting to watch 17 inch CRT monitors being thrown to the ground.
"What sir, these things travel from their factories in the same manner," says an employee nonchalantly when one makes an enquiry. Thus, a five in one scanner from Canon, or the latest Epson printer, or Samsung's Magicbrite monitors all get the same treatment on what is loosely dubbed Chennai's "electronics market."
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