Less than Bush's IQ

Aadi is an inauspicious month, or so feel the people of Chennai and Tamil Nadu.

No one weds, buys clothes or even shifts residence in Aadi.

If a marriage has to be conducted in Aadi, they keep the bride away from the groom lest there is an inauspicious conception.

People yearn for Aadi to end and Aavani -- Shraavan to north Indians -- to begin. Everything is low-key and commerce gets a beating. Traders wait endlessly for customers.

Then someone came up with the idea of 'Aadi Sale'.

Some 10-15 years ago, big retailers in Chennai's T-Nagar started offering huge discounts.

The urban population, with more or less steady incomes, saw the chance to make bargain purchases [it is a different matter that they do not use the product till Aavani starts].

Everything is on sale -- mixers, TV, music systems, refrigerators…

Now Aadi is perhaps the month traders ring up the highest sales in urban Tamil Nadu.

Competing discounts drive prices down by even 60%.

And it doesn't get any lower, as the hoarding in the picture says.