Status symbols of the 20th century
By Vimla Patil

BY a general guess, there must be very few people alive today who would have witnessed the dawn of the 20th century exactly a hundred years ago. A few centenarians are being felicitated everywhere and news about them appears regularly in the media. If one could interview them, all of them would probably agree that the century they have lived through, has been one of the most momentous ones in the entire history of mankind. This is not only because two of the most gruesome World Wars were fought in this century — apart from hundreds of small ones. Not even because the atom bomb was invented and dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during its centre-decade. But because the eclipse of slavery and imperialism vanished from the Asian and African continents during this century.

A new atmosphere of freedom helped the original cultures and lifestyles of many countries to flourish once again with vigour. Equal status in the international arena for all countries pointed the finger towards globalisation and burgeoning information technology made sure that the best in each culture reached the shores of all countries. Out of this globalisation and the resulting economic ambitions of people, various status symbols took birth from decade to decade, culminating in some universally accepted barometers for high achievements and a spectacularly stylish lifestyle.

The 20th century was not always so scintillating. It began under the strong Victorian orthodox influence as a rather conservative period when men and women were clearly meant to lead different lives. Men were either working class or the laid back, leisured landlords. The women followed their husbands’ status and produced as many children as their destinies ordained them. The status symbols of this early decade in India were khandani behaviour and a lifestyle to match. The rich in India — in every presidency or Riyasat — lived lavishly. Their tree-enclosed bungalows in Mumbai’s Malabar Hill, Delhi’s Maharani Bagh or their palaces in the erstwhile states, glittered with Italian chandeliers and French dinnerware. Music wafted out from their Persian carpeted homes each time there was a party or a baithak.

The new rich of India — Parsis, Marwaris and Gujaratis — built palatial bungalows in Mumbai, Madras, Delhi or Calcutta, which were the fast developing industrial metros of India and spread their wings to build holiday homes in the Sahyadri, Nilgiri or Himalayan Hills to emulate the British. They spent their lives earning money through businesses supported by the British rulers and copied them in fine living styles. The early rich of this century imported beautiful furniture from Europe and China and their tables were loaded with British bone china, French crystal and Sheffield silver. Their kitchens produced feasts fit for British nobility and their clothes were often made in London or Paris.

While the high society of India lived under the umbrella of British rulers, their status symbols were a near-British lifestyle with its chiffons, pearls, cars, wines, liquors and cigars and international travel by luxury liners. The women of these decades wore marcelled or bobbed hair, high heeled sandals, chiffon or georgette saris from Paris with sleeveless blouses, European make-up, Western sportswear and entertained in their opulent homes or in the sprawling country clubs which sprang up in the major cities. Race courses were laid down and the horse racing season became an event of fashion extravaganzas, garden parties and candlelight dinners.

On the other side, the market-driven communities developed stock or commodity exchanges where money changed hands in lakhs. Those who ruled over these speculative markets flourished, creating other status symbols. They built traditional havelis or wadas in the central zones of every city, ate in silver thalis, covered their women in jewellery and maintained large staffs of servants to provide them comfort and luxury.

A major change in status symbols came about when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came to India from South Africa and Britain. Here was a man fired by patriotism, idealism and determination. A man who cast aside his British suits and Swiss watches to accept the thick and rough Khadi as his attire. A man who quit his Diwani residence to live in an ashram. A man who changed the life of millions worldwide. Under his influence, and fired by his zeal, the richest families in India gave up their Western clothes. Some of them wore khadi and accepted a lifestyle nearest to that of the Mahatma. Khadi became the status symbol of patriotism and every upmarket home sported a charkha to symbolise the changing times. Prayer meetings, freedom slogans, newspaper writing, Prabhat pheris, protest marches and even intermittent jail sentences became the order of the day. Cries for freedom resounded in the British and Indian skies, changing the very colour of social life in India. Till freedom came in 1947, "simple living and high thinking" was the status symbol and all those who wielded power or wished to acquire power, wore the ‘uniform’ of the freedom fighter — a Gandhi cap, a khadi jhabba or kurta and a churidar or dhoti. The Nehru jacket and the Jodhpuri coat became the style barometers while the women dressed in khadi silk or handloom sarees.

With 1947, a watershed came about in Indian life. Though the Swadeshi status symbols lingered on, Independence ushered in an era of higher education and even foreign travel which, in their turn, became the status symbols of the fifties and sixties. The older generation of the middle classes felt this was their ‘great leap forward’ era and sent their children — both boys and girls — to convent schools and the newly opened colleges and technical institutions, to become professional and businesspersons rather than pen-pushers or salaried government clerks like themselves. Thousands of young people went to vilayat or America during these early decades, making a foreign education and the NRI status for at least one member of the family a definite status symbol. The resulting rush to marry NRI men and women to acquire a right of residence in the West, proves further how much the middle classes valued a Sterling Pound or Dollar income to upgrade their lives and to fuel their acquisitive instincts.

With the sixties, too, came the strong winds of women’s liberation and emancipation from the West. The freedom movement in India had brought women to the forefront of the struggle already and having tasted personal freedom, they were ready for the change which came from the West. Laws changed, family life patterns changed, the job market opened up for women, and suddenly, a successful career for a woman became a desirable goal for all middle class families.

Even the khandani rich, who had hitherto kept their women busy at parties, races, family get-togethers, card sessions or even shopping, suddenly sat up and realised the benefits of making their daughters or daughters-in-law into entrepreneurs. To have one’s own profession or business on flexi-time rather than be tied down by a nine to five routine, became a true status symbol of the seventies and early eighties.

The eighties were also the forerunners of the age of globalisation. Even the Congress party, which had ruled India as a monopoly till the eighties, forgot its hackneyed slogan of garibi hatao and concentrated on liberalising the economy. Metro properties, the share market, asset management and acquiring collectibles became the newest status symbols of Indian society. Further, with the oil boom in the Middle East, lakhs of families found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the beneficiaries acquired new houses, electronic gadgets of all variety and a lifestyle of travel, good clothes and good food. It was not fashionable any more to think high and live poor. It was not necessary to deprive children of luxuries to teach them the value of money. That children of rich families could do equally well became a proven fact.

So the status symbols of the eighties were more than one car per family, more than one house and so on. Young people expected to have comforts early in life and took for granted those luxuries for which their parents had to work hard and long. Fashion became big business because of the money in the hands of young people. Salaries, perks and professional incomes — sometimes two or three in a family, created a boom in property, lifestyle buys like clothes, food and home decor. Nothing was just functional any more. Clothes had to reflect "attitude". Food had to reflect an upgraded lifestyle. Education had to be exclusive. Homes had to be beautifully done up and bank accounts had to be full. It was stylish to be new rich and to rub shoulders with the glitterati of the metros.

The crescendo which had been building up during the seventies and eighties, reached its zenith in the nineties. Suddenly, satellite TV was here and Asia officially became"the continent of the future". Europe was passe and America was just moneyland. Asia was bristling with activity and booming. Indians had a new hope. Glamour, films, celebrities and a lifestyle to match what was shown in films, TV and magazines became the greatest status symbol of the decade. Every girl dreamt of becoming an Aishwarya Rai. Every young man wanted to be a Milind Soman or an Anil Ambani or an Amitabh Bachchan or a Sachin Tendulkar. Glamour-struck and celebrity enchanted, the Indian rich —upper and upper middle classes—saw a new dream of glory in which snazzy cars, country homes, designer clothes and jewellery, deluxe restaurants for fine dining and drinking, travel and tourism became the latest status symbols. The global wave of fitness and great bodies too hit India like a typhoon and doing work-outs or keeping fit and beautiful through air-conditioned fitness or exercise parlours and beauty salons became the rage of the decade. Good grooming became the keyword to a successful personality and any business or industry related to these status symbols, boomed beyond imagination.

Perhaps in the race to acquire all these symbols, Indians lost some of their old status symbols. Family unity, the cultural heritage, an abiding interest in the country’s institutions and social values were sacrificed in the melee of acquiring new status symbols. But many India-watchers predict that the soil of India will emerge as the greatest status symbol of the century. They say that each time there is a need, India’s ancient soil will dictate and direct the future generations to take everything good from all outside cultures but use it to build a strong India on the firm foundation of Indian values and status symbols which run like a golden thread through all human activities — material growth coupled with spiritual progress! India boasts one of the fastest growing economies of the world and it should not be difficult for Indians to mix ‘n match lifestyles to include the best from everywhere in the world!