Aadi is an inauspicious month, or so feel the people of Chennai and Tamil Nadu.

No one weds, buys clothes or even shifts residence in Aadi.

If a marriage has to be conducted in Aadi, they keep the bride away from the groom lest there is an inauspicious conception.

People yearn for Aadi to end and Aavani -- Shraavan to north Indians -- to begin. Everything is low-key and commerce gets a beating. Traders wait endlessly for customers.

Then someone came up with the idea of 'Aadi Sale'.

Some 10-15 years ago, big retailers in Chennai's T-Nagar started offering huge discounts.

The urban population, with more or less steady incomes, saw the chance to make bargain purchases [it is a different matter that they do not use the product till Aavani starts].

Everything is on sale -- mixers, TV, music systems, refrigerators…

Now Aadi is perhaps the month traders ring up the highest sales in urban Tamil Nadu.

Competing discounts drive prices down by even 60%.