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Mumbai’s
middle class is a class apart
For
the last two decades we’ve been hearing about the prosperous
Indian middle class. Well, now it seems that it’s got even
more prosperous and more sophisticated. Certainly in Mumbai.
Just
take a look around your grocer’s shop. Check out the variety
available of pre-packaged rice and milk in tetrapacks and the bulging
shelves of herbs, soaps and nasta Pasta! At every level things seem
to have gotten more upmarket.
It’s
not just the Benzers that are jazzing up thier shop fronts in preparation
for the ever more prosperous consumer, there is an ingenious shop
owner near the bus depot in Mahim, for instance, who has stuck a
child-sized chaise lounge with bright red velvet upholstery on the
board of his microscopic establishment. Quite a way to draw the
attention of the thousands who drive past. I find my gaze riveted
each time I pass by, even if it is partly in the expectation that
it might just tumble off before my eyes.
Are
we ready for all this upgradation? Who knows? When all the glitzy
stores/boutiques that have opened in recent times start folding
up or expanding, we will know if their assumptions about the average
Mumbaikar’s spending capacities were misplaced or not.
For
the moment though it makes an interesting change to have this sudden
expansion of choice at one’s doorstep — furniture, groceries,
toiletries, music, books, jewellery, watches, clothes, linen etc
etc. Even if all one can do is window shop.
Last
week I watched a man and his young daughter entertain themselves
in a designer store at Crossroads by looking at the label on each
and every outfit and chuckling at each other, all under the glare
of the shop assistant.
Some
observations. Why on earth are lifestyle stores so big on candles?
And why do music stores, even those with large collections of jazz
and classical music play nothing but popular English or Hindi music
all day?
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Despite
the gloss and the appearance of quality pervading the city, some
things remain depressingly slapdash and unprofessional. Last week
a friend went out to buy wood for a carpentry job. At each shop
he visited, the price not only differed wildly for the same quality
of wood, but at the slightest mention of a rival the shopkeeper
was willing to drop the price by as much as one-fourth.
The
carpenter, moreover, who executed the job apparently left promising
to return to iron out any problems. He has not been seen since.
With so many entrepreneurs around, perhaps there is a business opportunity
in this — supplying standardised materials and reliable carpenters,
masons, painters and electricians for all the refurbishing activity
going around.
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I once
read a story the details of which are now unclear but the gist of
it involved a famous British broadcaster and the Queen.
The
broadcaster apparently had been commissioned to cover an event which
was to be flagged off by the Queen. To fill time till the Queen,
who was visiting a neighbouring museum devoted, I think, to needlepoint,
made her arrival, the broadcaster began to talk about needlepoint.
He
talked so eloquently and so knowledgeably that the Queen herself
stayed back for over an hour to listen, further delaying her arrival
at the event which he was actually to cover.
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Radio,
we all know, can be a powerful medium. And now, with FM slots in
our major cities being auctioned to private parties, radio is slated
to make a high-profile return to the crowded media market.
Do
we however have to put up with brash, empty-headed radio jockeys
making inane conversation that constitute the majority of what we’ve
had so far? Are there no genuinely knowledgeable, funny, articulate
candidates available?
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