Lifestyles: 1900 — 2000
Austerity to extravagance

Lifestyles have changed dramatically over the last 100 years. From an impoverished existence at the beginning of the century, followed by Gandhian austerity of the decades between the 40s and 70s to excess and indulgence of the 80s and 90s, life has moved on surely and steadily. The 21st century will see India move on to the fast track as the Internet revolution takes a firm grip on our lives and makes it market and not ideal-driven. Deepanjali Diwedi reports.

Loose living, tight fitting... cold bodies, hot gossip... no rhythm, but still grooving...’

WHEN former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell came out with the pungent lyrics of her debut single Look At Me, she perhaps summed up the various contradictions that have become the talking points when anyone tries to describe what the ‘lifestyle’ in India today is all about.

Trying to generalise and bracket the varied tastes and passions of urban India is like trying to solve the Rubik cube blindfolded. There are complicated angles to this issue and singling out one is to miss the complete picture altogether.

Symptomatic of the major change in urban India today is the notion of "family". Take the case of the Khanna’s who live in a posh colony in South Delhi. Three generations co-exist under one roof. In the evening senior Khanna, a retired pensioner, sits in front of his television to watch news and an occasional serial.

Khanna’s wife bustles in the kitchen trying to housebreak yet another servant. His medical practitioner son and ‘banker’ daughter-in-law are getting ready to attend an office party at a five star hotel. Eldest granddaughter-Priya (18) is on the phone, younger one Neha (16) is chatting on the Net and Varun (12) is tearing up his geography maps in a fit of ungoverned peevishness.

A spanking new Santro shares the garage space with a battered and still used scooter. Come weekends and the family leaves the senior Khannas in the house and takes off for the movies or a picnic at the India Gate grounds.

Perhaps in a similar situation are thousands of families scattered across India, who are partaking in new pastimes and revised traditions. One can look at these emerging tastes and passions of urban India rather quixotically as one traces the route that the nation itself has taken to its current stage.

Through the Partition of Bengal (1905), the shift in capital from Calcutta to New Delhi (1912) and the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-34) India started making its shudders felt through the umbilical warmth of the colonial womb.

Days of The Raj

However, the British had left an indelible mark on the Indians. The "Colonial" lifestyle was marked by a refined sense of etiquette, social manners and graces that quickly percolated down to the families of the liberal educated Indian elite and intelligentsia.

Many of the middle class men in the cities were employed by the British. There was a desire to make themselves and their wives more acceptable to the British imperialists. English gained in popularity and was considered the sign of the progressive, educated and the elite in the pre-Independence era. English memsahibs were not only highly visible in the social circuits but were also competent housekeepers and hosts who were instrumental in furthering their husbands’ careers. The Indian wannabe memsahibs followed suit.

In rural India, the real rulers of the land were the zamindars, the landlords who had grown rich under the system of share cropping, the zamindars in the rural heartlands of India acted like small time kings. It was not till 1952 that the new Indian government abolished the zaminadri system, it was the end of a feudal era.

The land reforms affected thousands of people. Large holdings of the feudal landlords shrunk. Their sons were compelled to leave villages, seek an education and make their living in burgeoning cities. Since close ties existed with their traditions many of the customs, beliefs and faiths of the rural areas were carried over to the cities and towns. A strange paradox, visible even today, where progress and "modernity" co-exist in delicate balance with the old and the traditional.

Royal lifestyles

Apart from the British rulers, the only other section of the population which actively cultivated a ‘lifestyle’ was the royalty. Elizabeth Bimiller in her book May You Be The Mother Of A Thousand Sons — recounts the lifestyle, passions and tastes of the royal city of Jaipur. She writes that members of the royal family of Jaipur "were amongst the richest and by far the most glamorous clan of the nation’s royalty, and even more so than the others whose combined kingdoms once made up one third of the country. They lived in the land of glitter and excess: Shikars, polo matches, party weekends at hunting lodges surrounded by the golden desert of Rajasthan....."

Gayatri Devi’s grandfather kept trained parrots that rode little silver bicycles, her mother had a gold tongue-scraper. In the old days before the princely kingdoms became part of Independent India, 20 or 30 guests would come to stay at Rambagh, spilling from the marble verandah onto the dance floor and into the gardens where 200 kinds of roses grew. The fun never stopped.

The British sense of dress was emulated by men who wore suits with bows, smoked pipes and ate their curries with knife and fork. The British love for club life was emulated with the Indians denied entries into the Gymkhanas setting up their own exclusive clubs where they sipped Scotch and danced the fox-trot to British melodies.

The well-heeled Indians studied in Oxford or Cambridge and played cricket. Once they were back in India, polo and tent-pegging became their favourite sport. The commoner who could not send their children to the English universities looked for English medium schools, preferably those that had British teachers.

Gandhi’s influence

But then came Gandhi and spoilt the English party. Many Indians were weaned away by the future Father of the Nation. They shed their western attire for khadi kurta-pyjamas and sarees. It was back-to-the-roots calling and lifestyles became simpler and more indeginised.

Old timers romantically remember the days of the Independence fever, where they as impassioned youth raised slogans against the British. Old women gleefully recount the past as a happier, carefree time when Rs 25 could buy a month’s ration for the family. In the absence of hotels and restaurants, people made do with traditional outlets for entertainment like picnicking, attending poetry and singing sessions and the family’s day out eating chaat-pakori on the roadside.

The year 1947 saw the dawn of freedom and for about a couple of decades the nation stayed under the sway of swadeshi. But then things began to change. The Green Revolution made the farmers rich and their children moved to cities to seek more urbanised avenues. By 1985 the nation was holding Rajiv Gandhi’s hand to walk its first steps into the arms of economic reforms.

And that changed everything. The new economic dogma was cash, capitalism and consumerism. Multinationals bought with them a new work ethos and the demanding attributes of an international ‘lifestyles’.

With fatter paychecks came surplus disposable income levels. Towns expanded into cities and metros started burgeoning with a new breed of "yuppie" consumers.

The changes came with the expected dual edged gamble. On the positive side was the fact the Indians in the urban areas had become more quality conscious, had more choices and had the power to reject. The flip side was that the core of an Indian’s life — the family — started eroding. Like the Khannas probably three generations still live under one roof, but given a choice and the intolerance with older parents will increase.

Modern times

The financial pressures to maintain the ‘modern’ lifestyle has meant that any extra expense incurred on another human is being increasingly seen as unprofitable. And maybe in the future there will only be nuclear families living isolated, insular lives, packed away in compartments (called ‘flats’) fit for just two people and their two kids.

The new idols and ideals for the rich urbans are computers, cash, cars and cellulars. A recent survey revealed almost 50 per cent respondents between 15-24 years wanted a car as their first choice when they had the money. The downside of which is that around 10,000 new cars are expected to be added to the Indian roads every month and every 15 minutes a person is going to die of vehicular pollution.

The next in the list of the priority was the mobile phone with 14 per cent feeling that it had become a necessity. Why? Because if my car breaks down in a lonely area then at least I have the mobile to inform my family and the garage," was the reply of one of the respondents. And to think that earlier a car was just a car and not a vehicle that came with the appendage that it does now.

Almost 75 per cent of the 600 respondents across India said that their favourite passion was films, both Hollywood blockbusters and homegrown Bollywood fare. Not surprisingly 51 per cent voted a ‘multiplex’ as their favourite hangout. The youth also wanted more shopping malls, discotheques and bowling alleys in that order.

The entire business of entertainment has acquired mythic proportions in India today. A multiplex that offers cinema, food and recreation under one roof. A food plaza which has a pool table and a bowling alley is what is considered the next viable option for old theatre owners and planners. Food has always ruled man’s mind and not surprisingly with both husband and wife working these days, take-home and frozen foods are quickly replacing the simple Indian menus in most houses. A growing number of urban people say they eat out at least once a week. Not surprisingly, the restaurants are drawing in the crowds every week. And given the number of eateries that are sprouting all over the urbanscape it is a fact that food is going to remain the everlasting passion for a cuisine crazy public.

Enter the Cyber Age

Lifestyles in the new millennium are gearing up to adopt and adapt to the Internet as the next big communication vehicle across any generation. The world of intimacy, relationships and polygamous marriages are all being recreated in the tangled web of cyberspace. Chatting is quickly replacing real life communication, cyber widows are growing in numbers and every youngster wants to become a ‘geek’ god. Most cities and big towns are quick to draw on the lure of the Net and bigger metros now have the ubiquitous ‘Internet cafes’ some even being set up in the ‘STD/ISD/PCO ‘stalls.

Health has started to play a major role in the lifestyle of Indians today. Traditional therapies like yoga and massages are gaining in popularity. People have started frequenting gyms and health clubs that promise to kill flab. Reiki, pranic healing, meditation is quickly drawing in converts.

Given the desk jobs of most young executives coupled with the high calorie content imbibed in regular beer-food-and-relax weekends, means that most young people are already in the danger of succumbing to heart ailments which are on the rise. But then awareness about the dangers of an overweight body are catching on and people are ready to try out options these days to curb their flab.

Travel once relegated to the mandatory visit to the family house in the back of beyond is passe. Transatlantic holiday packages are the rule nowadays rather than the exception. Companies have started offering all paid junkets to their profitable employees.

Easy schemes have meant that more and more people are willing to ‘holiday now, pay later’. If you want to check the wanderlust in your neighbours’ blood just ask them what they would be doing in the coming New Year.

The answer would probably open your eyes to the gamut of aspirations that urban India anticipates.

— Newsmen Features