Rising India, Emerging India or India Shining. Spin it whichever way, there's money to flaunt and splash, as a burgeoning middle-class lets itself loose.
In an EMI-driven era, getting a housing loan, car loan or a personal loan has become a piece of cake. But what took the cake for me today was an Indian Express story which said banks have started giving loans to doting parents for kids' birthday bashes. Marriages, it's easy to relate to, but bank loans and EMIs for birthdays!
Parents are free to indulge their kids, using their resources. But bank loans for birthdays? Seems more like the outcome of peer pressure for both parents and kids. And a means to network for both parents and guests.
Here's more courtesy Washington Post
Being in India, one is used to the dichotomy of grinding poverty and staggering affluence. But in this India of opportunities for the middle class, the gap between the kid blowing up three lakhs on a birthday and the kid doing cartwheels and twisting her body while begging near Connaught Place is clearly widening. Emerging India is indeed appealing and scary at the same time.
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I didn't know about this new phenomenon developing. Actually, it reminds me of a birthday party for a two-year old we recently attended. The son of Gujju parents, the little guy was decked up in a fancy kurta, and his parents in unbelievably sparkling Indian clothes. I don't know if the little kid realized or cared for what all the fuss was about, but there was large room with oversized blown up pictures of the kid, and guests were Indians of all ages, with a couple of Americans scattered. And yes, the cake was a sight -- a moving toy train running on a bridge over and around the cake. We were quite taken aback with the whole thing. So may be it's not just Indians in India...
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