SHUBHAM BASU

This script talks about negotiation and body language in business deals during the 19^th century. The conversation has been picked up from ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, perhaps the best and timeless insight into people, personality and societal ordination. Mr. Karamazov (widower and about 48) counted among the well to do and adept at his business is trying to convince his second son, Ivan, to travel to a town to do the initial talking for selling of a patch of lumber. Ivan is hesitating, first because of his disinterest, and second because he is being asked to go out of his way to pull it off. Have fun reading it and please keep it in mind that the text was penned before 1880, only a few years after Nietzsche’s Zarathurstra.

“Wait, listen to me: you’ll manage, because I’ll explain all his [the prospective client] tricks to you beforehand. I’ve been dealing with Gortskin for a long time, you know. You have to keep watching his beard. It’s a miserable, thin, reddish beard. Now if that beard quivers as he talks and he himself gets angry- then he’s telling the truth and he’s really serious about the deal. But if he strokes his beard with his left hand and grins as he does it, then he’s just trying to take you in. Never look into his eyes, you won’t learn anything from them- it’s like looking into a murky pond. He’s too crooked to let you see anything in his eyes. No, just look at his beard. I’ll give you a note for him that you’ll show him. His name is Gortskin, but that’s not what they call him; he’s known as ‘the Hound’ in the district. But you mustn’t call him that; he may resent it. If you have a talk with him and see that all’s well, write me at once, something like: ‘He’s not lying this time.’ And wait, if you must, you may reduce the price from eleven thousand to ten, but no lower than that. Just bear in mind the difference between eight and eleven thousand is three thousand. It would be just like finding three thousand. And how soon could I get another buyer, for I need the money badly, right away! As soon as I get word from you, I’ll somehow snatch a moment and dash over there to close the deal. But as it is, why should I go rushing off when the whole thing may be just in the fellow’s imagination? So will you do it for me or not?”

How carefully does this businessman note people around him and mentions it so casually as if it’s his second nature. Dostoevsky has created a character that sits high on being a non-conformist but knows apples from oranges. This character knows what’s behind your eyes, even before you say it. Though through the book you will notice that he knows well what’s coming next and yet, deliberately ridicules the priest in public; and all around him, almost as if he bears the motif of a despot. However, as much as the fact that all personalities come with a downside, his strengths are what can be put on the slide amidst the materialistic Karamazov passion that shines like a trench-coat.  Perhaps contemporary Sales Managers will like to know what makes Mr. Karamazov.

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