There were also Chinese merchants carrying large bundles-guttries of their wares, mostly clothes, on their backs, who came to Savitri Nivas. Shri Nathji would look at their wares and choose and select whatever was needed for the home. He would try to bargain with them, because it was known that they sold things at highly inflated prices.
However Shri Nathji would stop bargaining with them the moment they said to him: “Nuka-saana hotaa hai! It will be a loss!” in heavily accented Hindustani. He would immediately buy the things at whatever price they demanded. He was concerned about the fact that these persons, some of them bent over with age, were carrying large and heavy bundles upon their backs over steep hill slopes. And he felt that it was his “duty” to give them some profit for their trouble.
Most of the things that Shri Nathji purchased were of practically no use in the house. He had purchased them purely to give business to the merchants. When Mateshwari would tell him that he had paid an exhorbitant price for the goods, Shri Nathji would narrate good humouredly how the merchants had said to him: “Nuka-saana hotaa hai!” imitating their voices to perfection and making the children laugh.