Divya Karthikeyan

The audience was silent and tense, with heads rapidly turning from the auctioneer to the two people engaged in a heated bidding match. “Going once, going twice, sold at 10,500!” he yelled. A balding man sniggered and instructed his accountant to write a cheque. The two bidders, accustomed to such thrilling encounters, shook hands. Kannan, a first-timer at the auction house mumbled discreetly: “I could have bought what they were fighting over in Chennai’s Pondy Bazaar for Rs600. This was an ego match.”