One day, in school, the chairman of my school was lecturing us during an assembly of some school function. He was talking about the exorbitant sums of money that kids of public schools spend on useless things. And he jokingly remarked that when he comes to our school for the farewell party every year he feels very delighted! The way students dress up makes him feel as if there is no poverty left in India!! That day we all laughed at it but I didn’t understand the deeper meaning (actually I wasn’t expecting anything profound from him!). But now, I think, I do. When I see school children going to school with mascara, lip gloss and blow dried hair, I actually pity them. They don’t know what they are missing. The innocence in oily, plated, ribboned hair looks so much better! And I pity their parents much more. How do they don’t know that their children would be more happy if they said ‘no’ to a few things? If a 20 year old-I can understand this they why can’t the 40year olds.

In 20th century India, the queues used to be for telephone and gas connections; now they will be for D&G and Prada handbags. Cigarettes are passé as cigars are lit by the upwardly smoky. Five years ago, drinking Johny Walker Black meant ‘bad man’; today’s malt whisky collectors treat tasting sessions like Masonic rites.

Gandhi burned foreign clothes and dressed like the half naked fakir. But nowadays, all that Gandhi means to us is a 100 or 500 or 1000 rupees note!
Where has all the poverty gone?
Luxury used to be a dirty word. Showing off was so politically incorrect, that it became a political slogan. A socialist half-century was build on the dogma that soberness was the correct moral ethos for a country filled with street dogs, maimed beggars and starving children. India used poverty as moral high ground, and its ethical arrogance came from self-denial.
The symbols of today’s India have changed. The foreign clothes are back, in chic boutiques with outrageous price tags, semi-nudity is trendy, and logos have become symbols on their own.

The symbols of poverty seem to be changing.

Gandhijee said India lives in villages. But the villagers that live in them desire urban symbols. Most aspire to wear jeans and tees, they steal electricity to run their TVs, and crime is fuelled by immigrant ambitions. Family members who migrate to cities enforce urban wedding values on villagers, throwing them into irredeemable debt, forcing them to mass suicide.
Influenced by the west, we are embracing their institution and are adding them to our own. But we should not forget that we are the residents of an incredible country called India and we should be proud of it. I am.