Funnycontrol | The Apple doesn’t fall far from the store

The Apple store will be called 'Apple BKC'. (Photo credit: twitter.com/@varunkrish)

Apple’s Mumbai store at BKC is called Apple BKC. BKC, however, is still not called Jio BKC. A headline in this publication read “Apple’s Delhi store is significantly smaller than Mumbai outlet”. Many men from Delhi took to the internet challenging their counterparts in Mumbai to show the size of their outlets. Mercifully, the new IT law proposed by the government should help to prevent the spread of any fake news in this regard. The Delhi store, measuring 8,417.38 sq. ft of carpet area is due to open at Select City Walk Mall in south Delhi after the first outlet in Mumbai in a further insult to Delhi’s pride and I don’t mean Appu Ghar.

Apple will pay a rent of around Rs 40 lakh a month for its second retail store in Delhi. Landlords in Bengaluru have used this as an excuse to hike their rents further. It is now believed the most common use of ChatGPT by Bengaluru techies is not coding but finding cheap rental houses. However, even ChatGPT-4 users were asked to wait till Chat GPT 44 is developed to solve a problem of such complexity. Apple paid a security deposit equivalent to three months’ rent or as Bengaluru landlords would call it, down-payment on the security deposit.

The Mumbai outlet, on the other hand, is sprawling at 20,000 sq. ft of retail space or, as real-estate brokers in Mumbai would call it, 200 BHK. Surprisingly, Apple is paying roughly Rs 42 lakh for 20,000 sq. ft in Mumbai. In other words, retail space in Delhi is more expensive than in India’s financial capital. This made the same Delhi men go back to the internet to parade the size of their city’s cost of living inflation. Meanwhile, I am haggling with my broker in Mumbai to reduce the rent from Rs 42,000 to Rs 40,000 for a 1-bathroom-kitchen. The Mumbai store is inspired by the artwork inside the iconic ‘Kaali Peeli’ taxis in the city. Which means the doors to the store will randomly reject people from entering precisely during peak hours.

Apple’s rent will be increased by 15 per cent every three years. To give Apple the experience of its own customers, the landlord will also secretly reduce the size of the electric metres each year without informing Apple. However, stores in both cities are expected to do fabulously with Delhiites already lining up outside the store with their cars, while their Mumbai counterparts are lining up behind the autorickshaw stand to take them to the Metro station, at the Metro station to take them to the railway station, at the railway station to take them to Bandra station, at Bandra station Shared rickshaw stand to take them to BKC where the store will open 1 hour late because the employees are stuck in traffic.

The company-owned stores are a great moment for Apple enthusiasts as earlier they had to purchase the phones from re-sellers. But now they are excited about being looted directly by the company so they can get the true Apple experience.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to visit India for the opening of the two flagship stores. One hopes he doesn’t use Apple maps to navigate. My finances will not allow me to navigate myself to Apple BKC. But if any of my readers in either city are navigating to the Apple store, I hope you steal the Apple Logo for me so even I can get the Apple experience.

The rivalry between Mumbai and Delhi is as old as the rivalry between Oxford and Harvard or Pepsi and Coke depending on who is sponsoring this Funnycontrol article.