As the Sensex reaches a new milestone, Prakash and Ravi pray for a market correction. Bear cartel at work? Not quite. For, Prakash and Ravi have nothing to do with the markets except that they are the friendly neighbourhood chaiwala and soft-drink seller on Dalal Street.
Prakash, 26, says his sales have been going down almost in the same proportion as the market is going up. "When the markets are down, many sweating faces come here at regular intervals to drink my tea. But when the markets are high, they seldom come here. After market hours, they flock to plush restaurants," he says.
Ravi, a middle-aged man selling soft drinks at one corner of the street, says only God can help him by pushing down the markets.
"My sales have gone down sharply over the past three months as people seldom come out during the trading hours," he says.
But there are others who are booking profits, selling everything other than scrips, outside the Bombay Stock Exchange. Young Arvind, who owns the Right Stationary and Printers - a shop he inherited from his father - at Dalal Street, says sales have picked up about 25 per cent.
"Now that the market is high, the demand has gone up for all items - from computer papers and cartridges to pen and stapler pins."
Ram Sanjeevan Tripathi, the a paper vendor from Uttar Pradesh, who sits next to the chaiwala, says sales of pink papers and business magazines have gone up four fold.
"Earlier, more people came to flip through the pages. But now everybody is buying these. The magazine, which used to sell 10 copies a day, is now selling 40 to 50 copies.
And finally there is the paanwala. Dayaram Chaurasia has a wide grin on his face, which says he has seen it all. "Yeh bazaar to amir logon ka khel hai," he says.
Chaurasia, however, bought a few scrips two months back after being tipped off by a customer. After searching in his little box, he comes up with a parchi which says 200 shares of Cinerad Communications bought at Rs 10 each and 500 shares of Standard Industries bought at Rs 27.
The scrips are now trading at Rs 11.87 and 36.65, respectively. But Chaurasia isn't too happy. "When will the prices really go up for these two?" he says.