It is a week before Diwali in a showroom chain in Jaipur. The owner runs the old branch near Johari Bazaar, another in Vaishali Nagar and a new one in Malviya Nagar. He bought heavily from Surat and Gandhi Nagar and divided the goods as he always does, a little of everything to every branch.
On the busiest Saturday, a woman at the Vaishali Nagar branch picks a green anarkali. Her size is not there. The salesman calls the old branch. The phone rings and rings, because the old branch is full of customers too. She buys something else from the showroom across the road. That evening, the old branch closes with the same green anarkali in her size, untouched, on its back rack. Nobody ever connects these events.
In January, the owner walks through every branch before the end-of-season sale. He finds racks of heavy sarees in Malviya Nagar, where customers wanted lighter designs, and a pile of small and large sizes in every branch. He puts most of it in the sale at a heavy cut. When the accountant shows him the season's figures, the sales are high but the profit is thin, and he cannot say exactly why.