by Shobhaa De
My favourite story revolves around a Bangladeshi male model I first met in Dhaka. It was at his first show and he was understandably nervous. Well-mannered, good-looking and clearly from a lower middle-class background, the boy was introduced to a well-connected fashion impressario from India by a hugely celebrated fashion designer from Bangladesh. Impressed by the model's physique, the designer invited the model to try his luck in India. In under a month, the young man arrived in Bangalore with hope in his eyes and hunger in his belly. As one of his mentors put it: ‘He didn't have a fresh pair of underwear— he was that poor.’ Plus, the boy couldn't speak either English or Hindi—only Bengali. Today, this same person is on every designer's ‘most wanted’ list. What's more, he has found himself an agent in New York, and cracked a few prestigious global campaigns. He flies to Milan with the insouciance with which his contemporaries fly to Kolkata for shows. And yet, his fairytale story has a flaw—for all his success in India, the authorities gave him a run for his money, by refusing to extend his visa. Bureaucracy has a way of levelling everybody. But he has now mastered the ropes of paying his way past red tape. He laughs and says cheerfully, ‘It's the same in my country… worse, in fact.’ And yes, he makes the sort of money it would've taken him more than thirty years of hard work and luck to make back home. People admire him for that and he's enjoying his celebrity.
Young people love money. Young Indians have finally shaken off their guilt pangs, inherited from seriously confused parents, where lolly is concerned. Money is very sexy. And a lot of youths will readily confess that if it's a toss-up between getting rich and getting laid, they'd take the first option. ‘It's a rich man's world,’ they carol, flipping through glossies that are so niched, one can handpick anything, from a customized commode with gold fixtures to a personal jet with a jacuzzi.
No dream is too big for Indians these days. Everybody is dreaming it, in gaudy technicolor. At one level it is thrilling, at another, pretty scary. My father's first car was a bulky, ugly Landmaster. Mine was a Merc. We both bought our cars with our own hard-earned money. Mine was possible thanks to India's new mania— bank loans for any and every occasion. My father had to pay cash down. He was very proud of his car, and so were we. It was looked after like one of the family, and even worshipped on Dusshera day (along with the cook's cycle and our writing instruments). It was in this lumbering car that my father undertook road trips that were supposed to educate us and keep the family singing on those interminable highways. Weekend picnics, weekday outings—the good old Landmaster never let us down. And we never took the car for granted. It was there for official outings only. Nobody was allowed to casually ‘borrow’ it, not even my older brother Ashok.
When I acquired my car, everybody in the family took it for granted I needed it, while declaring, ‘About time, too!’ Nobody was particularly impressed. I was alone in my jubilation. I almost gloated as I took it for a ‘blessing’ to my favourite Hanuman temple on Colaba Causeway. There we stood, in the middle of a busy street, with curious foreigners staring as the priest broke a coconut, anointed the bonnet with a red kumkum swastika, garlanded the fender, poured holy water all around the vehicle, chanting auspicious mantras, while I stood next to my ‘Midnight Queen’ with a solemn expression, repeating prayers with the heady fragrance of agarbattis making my head spin. But my heart was soaring! No… nearly bursting with pride. I'd done it! On my own. Thank you, car finance! Thank you, bank manager. It was really a long journey for a woman like me. A Merc! My Merc!! Mine! Mine!
*
Well, I was in my fifties before I could afford to buy my own car. (Using husband's car does not qualify.) And feel I'd earned it… deserved it! My sons Rana and Aditya had both acquired fancy wheels in their early thirties. They believe they've earned and deserved them, too! Once again, car finance, zindabad! But it's the attitudinal change that's far more interesting. While I agonized over the EMIs (monthly instalments) and was worried sick whether I'd be able to shell out a pretty hefty amount month after month for eight long years, these guys have no such anxiety. ‘Oh… we'll find the money, what's the problem?’ they ask, staring at their platinum credit cards. It took me years to acquire plastic. I was terrified at the thought I'd be tempted to overspend, or that I'd run up a huge debt, that creditors would hound me, or worse, send a goon squad to my residence in order to recover the amount. I had terrible visions lying awake at night, doing my sums and regretting a pricey, spontaneous purchase at a duty-free store in some exotic destination.
The future is plastic
I resisted getting a credit card till I'd hit my mid-forties. And even after I got the first one, I treated it like a highly inflammable object. I wasn't comfortable handling the small stiff rectangle for a really long time. Till today, my first instinct is to pay cash (fortunately, I never have too much of that in my wallet). The children (all six have cards, will spend) laugh at my discomfiture, pointing to how easily the rest of the world transacts, thanks to this wonder card. ‘Nobody in their right mind pays cash…’ they remind me. And my father's disapproving face looms in front of my eyes. To the best of my knowledge, he'd never ever used a credit card. The word ‘credit’ itself was a pretty bad one in his vocabulary. ‘Buy only that which you can afford… never a borrower nor a lender be… cut the coat according to the…’ His words are embedded in my mind. I suffer pangs of guilt when I know I have over-indulged. The question of asking anybody to loan me even change-money therefore does not arise. I am not unique in this regard.
My generation grew up with an extra sense of conservatism regarding money and expenditure. There was nothing called ‘over-extended’ in our relationship with the local bank manager. A negative balance was considered disgraceful. Today's generation is entirely credit-happy. They run up indecent bills without a worry in the world. And they manage to sleep very soundly at night, even knowing they're stone-broke. I'm told this is how the world spins.
‘Financial management is about rolling resources, revolving funds…’ a cocky, young man told me, while trying to sell me something exhorbitant that I didn't want. And the first image that came to me was that of a fourteen-year-old (Indian) girl I'd met in Singapore, nearly ten years ago. Her indulgent father's idea of a birthday gift had been to give the teenager a bouquet of credit cards. Her LV wallet was so stuffed with every imaginable Privilege Card that when she hit the malls (every other day) she could virtually pick up whatever she fancied. ‘It's normal’, she told me breezily, while offering to pay for my purchases! More recently, on a short trip to Baroda to meet our daughter Radhika, I watched local teens shopping at a mall—they all paid with plastic. This is pretty radical for a society that has always put a huge premium on financial liquidity. Traditional money-lenders have been loathed and lampooned for centuries. Any popular Hindi film of the socialistic '60s would write in a character who was the village money-lender—detested by all for his cut-throat ways. The irony of the fact, that this individual has been replaced by a sharp banker offering to underwrite dreams, is completely lost on the euphoric middle-class person who can't get over the thrill of owning whatever can be financed by a friendly bank—a motorcycle, holiday, home, business. The arithmetic is far too complex and few people read the fine print. Just the thought of ‘ownership’ is empowering enough. Young working couples break their backs trying to remain afloat while juggling loans. There's no time to enjoy the perks of what they've worked so hard to achieve. So does it make sense to work this hard to create a lifestyle that there is insufficient time to actually enjoy? Malls in India are crowded with ‘hotties’ frantically searching for the perfect ‘It’ bag or the season's top accessory. Plastic smooths their journey as they negotiate their way in and out of international boutiques. This is the first generation of women in India with an income to call their own. They still have to get used to the idea of spending their own lolly. In fact, the feeling is so alien, they experience dollops of guilt while splurging. Retail therapy in the Western sense is a comparativel
y new phenomenon. But those who've discovered its myriad virtues are as self-indulgent as their sisters in London, Milan, Paris or New York. Most belong to the special tribe of die-hard shoppers who can't get enough—the kind of over-indulgence that one associates with a Paris Hilton is now a lifestyle statement to be proudly flaunted by girls flashing titanium credit cards with no real limit. We are talking about successful professionals, not heiresses. These ladies raid malls on a bi-weekly basis, shop on the Net and are fiercely au courant regarding international trends. They travel. They shop. They have sex with strangers. If that sounds like a promo for Sex and the City, well… there it is.
Shopping for big-ticket items is seen as a lifestyle statement. Going on customized cruise vacations (not with the janata, please, and never on one of those dreadful Lakshadweep cheap deals) and acquiring a farmhouse or a beachfront property of your own is another sign of having arrived. The older generation gets mini heart attacks when they discover how much their children are spending on ‘unnecessary things’. It's hard to convince people for whom five zeroes on a cheque represent a milestone when they find out that those zeroes mean little to a twenty-something whose salary cheque comes with yet another zero. For that person to acquire a designer ‘It’ bag at well over a lakh of rupees is no big deal. It's seen as an investment in the all-important ‘image’! If a young man spends half the salary his father earned on a pair of Italian loafers, his dad may get a coronary, but for the son, it's a Sunday brunch statement, without which he feels lost. This new consumerism, which is seen as an addiction or affliction, depending on the perspective, is spreading like a virus through the length and breadth of India.
A young boy from distant Bihar came to seek employment in our home a few months ago. He was dressed like Salman Khan, in ‘designer’ jeans (cheap knock-offs), a body-hugging T-shirt, his feet shod in trainers with fluorescent laces, his hair carefully streaked and floppy, his earlobes studded with fake solitaires. I took it all in wordlessly—the blond forelocks covering one eye, the swagger and strut… and I wondered what sort of ‘work’ I could give such a guy. While talking to me, he received a call on his mobile phone, which was encased in a colourful cover. The ring tone was a catchy film hit and he looked ready to audition for a Bollywood ‘item number’. He was demanding a salary of Rs 4,000. He said he'd never attended school, was illiterate and wouldn't do any ‘heavy’ work! Now 4,000 rupees was what I had considered a pretty decent salary for myself after working as an editor for a couple of years. And here was this freako-punk asking me nonchalantly for this absurd remuneration. I was in a state of shock as I hastily got rid of him. Later, while discussing it with the family, I was told it was the going rate in the area for light work or ‘top work’ as it is quaintly known. Inflation or lunacy? Or just plain progress?
‘Money has little value these days,’ another semi-literate domestic worker told me. He goes to five homes to cook meals. He earns Rs 25,000 to 30,000 a month. It is not enough, he complains, pointing out the exhorbitant amounts he pays to tutors who coach his kids. ‘They will not go from home to home cooking in hot kitchens, walking in the sun, barely having any time to eat themselves… they will earn well in big jobs, go abroad, join a multinational company, get cars and decent houses.’ These are achievable dreams. But just after that declaration, he came to me for a largish loan. He'd been diagnosed with stones in his gall bladder. He'd decided to go in for surgery. And not just with any old doctor. He'd got the best (with an FRCS degree, no less). ‘Can't take a chance,’ he explained, ‘the sooner I get back on my feet, the better’.
It made me wonder whether those children would realize what their father gave up to give them a better life? Doubtful. It is a child's prerogative to take such sacrifices for granted. Rarely do they acknowledge or appreciate the effort. While watching The Namesake, I was struck by a line in the movie when a white American woman, who works as a librarian, reminds her Indian colleague, who's agonizing over her son acquiring an American girlfriend, that in America kids are on their own from the age of sixteen! They are expected to leave home and fend for themselves. Even if that's an exaggeration, it underpins the truth. Parenting comes with a cut-off date in the West. The paradox is that today's children have happily borrowed the Western model of conduct (calling out to parents ‘Hey you guys’, as in the movie), but still want to hang on to the old perks: live at their parents' home till they get married (and even after), never offer to pay bills or share expenses, contribute very little in terms of emotional support, lead entirely independent lives socially, but expect all the standard facilities—food, laundry, transport. Indian parents resent this, since it is a one-way traffic with zero returns. A time will come when they too will turn around and ask for a rent-sharing arrangement or some sense of fairness in this lopsided relationship.
Discussing money bluntly was not considered polite in India. It led to complications (avoidable) and bad blood (very avoidable). But young Indians are far more up-front about this, like their counterparts in the rest of the world. Going dutch on a date was not the done thing in my time. Today, I see everyone settle their bills separately in restaurants. Plastic strikes again! The biggest retail revolution is taking place riding on plastic… making me smile nostalgically. Remember that line from The Graduate when a dumbstruck Dustin Hoffman is told by a pompous suit, ‘The future, young man, is in plastic.’ The future is finally here. And surprise, surprise—it is in plastic!
Mere Paas Ma Hai
Everything but everything in India can be traced back to that tiny two-letter word ‘Ma’! It is the ultimate trump card, especially for a man. We are a nation of Mama's Boys, and we aren't embarrassed to say so. Men unabashedly love their mothers. And if Freud had a problem with that, well, that's his problem. Regardless of state and age, our men unreservedly adore ‘Mummyji’. I like that! At least they aren't pretending. Once they've declared Mummyji to be the undisputed heroine in their lives, all else falls into place.
Since the men don't always know that it's considered wimpish for a guy to go on and on about his mom in Western society, desi fellows un-self-consciously and sweetly fall into the ‘Mummy knows best’ trap. But it is not such a terrible thing… really. If society the world over would accept this basic truth (men love their moms), nobody would pretend. Since the ‘Ma’ plays such a key role in our everyday lives, it's only fair that we examine this phenomenon. The great mother figure is the one single constant that has not been thrown out in the current cultural revolution. Nearly everything else has. The matriarch possesses such a terrifying hold over us that to deny her rightful position is to invite the wrath of the gods.
Asian societies are fairly kind to women of a certain vintage. It is yet another charming paradox. Once the woman crosses the all-important menopausal hurdle and her womb no longer produces those infernal eggs that cause most of society's problems, she is declared ‘safe’. She stops threatening society with her sexuality. She can be ‘managed’. That's when she's automatically elevated to a higher status and all but worshipped. She becomes the closest thing to living divinity. Foreigners travelling through India are often struck by this amazing upgradation, as they trundle through Rajasthan, marvelling at the way old crones rule their private fiefdoms. What they don't know (thank the Lord!) is that the same imperious women were bullied young girls once. And their lives were anything but admirable then.
Asian societies are fairly kind to women of a certain vintage. It is yet another charming paradox
I have monitored the transformation that takes place the moment a wife becomes a mother. Especially the mother of a son. She is instantly promoted and accorded a special position within her immediate community. She becomes a universal mother. And everyone addresses her as ‘Ma’… ‘Munne ki Ma’ or ‘Bittu ki Ammi’.
Having only daughters is not the same thing. Anything but, as any Indian mother of baby girls will tell you. The first daughter may be tolerated (as opposed to welcomed), but after her birth, any other female add
itions are regarded as liabilities. A daughter can never ever dream of boasting (as actor Shashi Kapoor famously did in his role in Deewar) ‘Mere paas Ma hai’. Because the relationship between a girl-child and her mother is so completely different from a boy's. A daughter never ‘possesses’ her mother, because a daughter is considered to be ‘in transit’—like she's in a railway station's waiting room, ready to hop on to the train that will carry her to the real and final destination—the sasural, or husband's home. This successfully prevents mother and daughter from investing too heavily in each other. And yet, most mothers will confess if prodded that their ties are so much stronger with daughters. More than we are ready to admit.