Superstar India

by Shobhaa De

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  SUPERSTAR INDIA

  Obsessive-compulsive writer of fifteen books, Shobhaa Dé has spent the last three years in the pursuit of her first vocation, journalism. Her columns are ubiquitous, appearing in nearly every newspaper and magazine of note. They carry her customarily edgy observations on matters of politics, the economy, business and commerce, the heart and the hearth.

  Bestselling author, jet-setting commentator and honest critic, she is most at home in Mumbai – a city which is also a recurrent ‘character’ in much of her work – living there with her husband Dilip and (when they're around) their six children.

  Superstar India

  From Incredible to Unstoppable

  SHOBHAA DÉ

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Penguin Books India 2008

  First published in Great Britain by Penguin Books 2009

  1

  Copyright © Shobhaa Dé, 2008

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192374-1

  For both my mothers,

  Aie

  and

  India.

  And… for the one-billion-plus Superindians

  who have made India a global superstar!

  Acknowledgements

  It started with a phone call. David Davidar was at the Penguin India office in New Delhi and had called for a casual chat. He asked whether I was planning a new book, and I glibly replied, ‘I am always planning a new book.’ David went into his ‘Hmmmmmm’ mode before asking, ‘What's it about?’ I had to think fast. Really, really fast. I tossed two ideas at him, one for a novel, the other for this book. An India book. I must have sounded pretty impassioned as I took off on how I feel about the country… and my own life, seen through that filter, given the fact India and I are the same age. ‘You've got your book,’ David declared crisply, before handing over the phone to Thomas Abraham. ‘Congratulations!’ said Thomas. And we were in business.

  I turn into a monster when a book is on. Several people are compelled to tolerate me while I growl and snap my way through the writing of it. My special thanks to darling Prita Maitra—a kinder, gentler editor would be hard to find. I feel blessed.

  Hemali Sodhi has seen me through several books and as many adventures while promoting them. It is her quick wit and terrific sense of humour that have prevented many a potential gaffe. Thank you, dearest!

  Ravi Singh, with his spot-on editorial instincts, provided just the right perspectives each time I was stuck and panic-stricken.

  My long-suffering husband Dilip, and the children deserve an equally sincere acknowledgement for their silent support… and wicked jokes… at my expense, of course!

  And a big kiss to John Makinson, for keeping the faith and making me feel like a really special member of the extended Penguin family worldwide.

  And above all, dhanyavad, India… my joy, my inspiration. Without you, this book would not have been possible to write!

  Prologue

  …because I believe

  Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand's beloved king, turned eighty in December 2007. Millions of his loyal subjects wore yellow on that day. Why? Yellow happens to be the ruler's favourite colour, and his people wanted to express their love and respect for the world's longest reigning monarch by being colour co-ordinated with him on his special day. It was an entirely spontaneous, untutored gesture. No manipulation involved. Nobody was paid to conform to the yellow dress code. What a sweet and simple way of demonstrating solidarity and commitment, I thought to myself as I scanned the papers the next morning. Would such a thing happen in today's India? Is there even a single individual with the capacity to touch our hearts, inspire us, lead us? Alas, the answer is a flat and disheartening ‘no’.

  What then has given India its special glow, its special status? I asked myself that question at least a hundred times while writing this book. I believe I finally have my answer. To be a superpower, you need super people. India's biggest strength lies there—we are a super people!

  The answer surprised me. It was that obvious! And yet, it may just be India's best-kept secret. The world is suddenly looking at us with wonderment, even a tinge of envy. India counts. India rocks! India is ‘hot’.

  Why now? What has changed? I believe it is because we have taken the world by surprise. Why, we have taken even ourselves by surprise! We see our freshly-minted image and wonder, ‘Is that really us?’ There is charming disbelief in that reaction. But there is also renewed confidence. We have finally started believing in us! Reason enough to rejoice. And with this self-belief, we have started renegotiating our past equation with the world. We are in the happy position to do so, that, too, on our own terms. And because of this new-found assertiveness, we are finally ready to invest in ourselves. We know India is offering the best returns. Why look outside, as we once did, when the dazzling story of success and prosperity is unfolding right here, right now?

  I have a small confession to make. When I began the book, I had a Bollywood song buzzing inside my head. ‘Where's the party tonight?’, the compellingly catchy track from a widely discussed movie, perfectly captured my upbeat feelings towards India, and, therefore, the book. In fact, I was sorely tempted to make it the theme song for the project, and almost did. But as I continued writing, the heady euphoria of the first few weeks got replaced by a more sober emotion. For us to leverage and sustain the ‘India Moment’ that is dominating our psyche at present, we also need a few reality checks to keep us on course. Even as I took a long, hard look at some of the obvious downsides (Q: ‘What are the three things keeping India down?’ A: ‘Corruption. Corruption. Corruption.’), I still felt the upsides (Q: ‘What's so fantastic about the India Story?’ A: ‘People. People. People’ ) tilted the scales in our favour. God! If only we knew how to better utilize our greatest national asset—the billion-plus people who make us what we are. Either we see them in this positive light and maximize the benefits of those daunting numbers. Or we foolishly look at our population as a liability and throw away a natural advantage.

  Statistics can be as terrifying or reassuring as we'd like them to be. They are mere numbers after all. It is a fact that 77 per cent of India live on less than twenty rupees a day. Let's not sweep these grim digits under the carpet. But let us a
lso pay attention to another, equally relevant statistic: 50 per cent of India is under thirty-five years of age. That makes us a remarkably young country, with a youth force of half-a-billion! It is entirely up to us how we harness those energies, motivate this gigantic mass and get going. Never before has ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ been seen as ‘Mera Bharat Jawan’. It is indeed a fantastically dynamic growth period in India's sixty-year-old life, and we should make the most of our resource—the twenty- and thirty-somethings who are driving the economic spurt. The future is here—and it is appealingly youthful. These are the new kids on the block. India's hopes, dreams and aspirations rest with them. Will they deliver?

  On a far more personal level, this is my special love letter to my country. I want the world to fall in love with India.

  To go back to a Bollywood song again, ‘Yeh mera prem patra padkar, ki tum naraaz na hona…’ This is a story about India. My India. It is a very personal story. You see, I am exactly as old as India. So, in a wonderful way, I am very much a part of the India story. I have watched the country change—have been a vital part of that change myself. As they say in business circles, I am fully invested in India. Always have been. I have never considered living anywhere else, never sought opportunities overseas, never fled, despite the odds. I kept the faith. And—YES!—my faith has paid off.

  I was an early believer. India has that effect on people. For, India is very easy to fall in love with! Impossible and demanding. Exasperating and annoying. But equally enchanting and alluring, captivating and quixotic. It is difficult for me to be dispassionate about India. I embraced it a long time ago, the way I embraced my own mother. What makes India such a Superstar in my eyes? Don't most children think that about their mothers? Today, Aie, my biological mother, is no more. But I can still claim, ‘Mere paas Maa hai.’ I have India. I feel blessed.

  Shobhaa Dé

  March 2008

  Right between the Eyes…

  X'mas. Agra. Cold. Cold and foggy. My husband and I had driven to the city that exists for one reason alone—the Taj Mahal. Like Cairo and the Pyramids. Agra and the Taj… they go hand-in-hand. Just like the freshly-scrubbed, neatly-dressed schoolchildren we saw, making their way to school, skipping along happily on an unpaved, dusty road right outside the city limits of this historic town. Our guide, Mr Dubey, started on his spiel as my eyes followed the kids. They'd gotten off the road now, and were running across a mustard field. It was a scene straight out of a Yash Chopra film.

  Every imaginable prop was in place—a village woman in a ghungat was drawing water from a well, a shepherd was tending to his flock of well-fed sheep, using a neem twig to get the strays back in line, sand merchants were unloading sacks at the local mandi, as mica flakes caught the light and twinkled happily. Donkey carts laden with foodgrain took the same narrow road as hired vehicles of tourists ‘doing’ Agra in a day. Tourists, like ourselves. Yes, us. Tourists in our own country. The ‘other’ India. The one ‘we’ know so little about. And like any outsiders, my husband and I commented on the backwardness of the countryside and wondered what sort of an India those schoolkids would experience. Would they be excluded from the euphoria? Would they even get to finish their schooling and dream a bigger dream than their parents dared to?

  Tourists in our own country. The ‘other’ India. The one ‘we’ know so little about

  Worse… were they already reconciled to their current reality? Did they even know that while empowered, urban India was rejoicing wildly and talking recklessly about being a super-super-power, here, in the only city of the world boasting—not one, but—three significant Heritage Sites (the magnificent Agra Fort, the even more magnificent Fatehpur Sikri and that wonder-of-wonders, the luminous mausoleum known simply as the Taj), the picture was pretty dismal.

  Shabby jhuggies and jhopdis line the unimpressive route to the most-recognized ‘Monument to Love’. I thought of all the VVIPs who'd taken the same uneven highway over the years, from the Kennedys and Bill and Chelsea Clinton to Princess Diana and the Musharrafs. They'd seen our squalor, too! Suddenly, I felt defensive and proprietorial—so what if we didn't have super highways and fast tracks? So what if the only impressive milestones along that road to Fatehpur Sikri were built by Emperor Akbar in the sixteenth century? Those schoolkids looked so happy running through that field of yellow… one of them had a colourful kite in his hand that the others were trying to grab. Maybe he'd fly it later… maybe the kite would soar… maybe the fog would clear… maybe ‘we’ would stop obsessing over India's destiny, trying foolishly to control it the only way we know—through great, big technological leaps and cosmetic changes that ‘conform’ to an accepted model of progress and prosperity, as defined by the G8 countries: great roads, great infrastructure, great communication systems… all of India, neatly wired, all set to roll… glittering malls, delirious shoppers, packaged foods a-plenty, a dizzying choice of cars, clothes, bathroom tiles. The ‘wow’ factor… I was beginning to get slightly breathless with excitement.

  Everything and anything seemed possible… achievable. Suddenly, I became that little boy with the kite. Agra looked glorious, the humble dhaba food was the best meal I'd ever eaten (‘what jeera tadka in the aloo sabzi! Amazing daal… another lachcha paratha please… and oh… make that two lassis'). This was actually happening. At the Indraprastha dhaba, which Mr Dubey reluctantly took us to (‘But why a dhaba, madam? There are good five-star hotels in Agra. Only bus-class tourists stop at dhabas…’), I saw a group of south Indian ladies examining their thali of vegetarian food with deep suspicion… the men folk picked up each item and smelt it before giving the all-clear.

  Meanwhile, another group of teenage girls from Ludhiana was venturing into the fields behind the dhaba, their healthy bodies squeezed into extra-tight jeans. They were looking over their shoulders and giggling as they sought a thick-enough bush to pee behind. Oh—oh— there went another black mark against India. No loos. No toilets—just the fields welcoming natural fertilizers. Mr Dubey and the driver looked like they had clearly enjoyed the lunch, as we got back into the car, and he launched into a poetic discourse on the legacy of the Mughal kings.

  I switched off and watched the uninspiring landscape, wondering a little angrily why nobody in all these years had bothered to work on making Agra the number one tourist destination, if not in the world, then in Asia. It was, by far, the most recognized symbol of India. Even a mid-Western potato farmer would instantly associate the monument with India. But we had failed to leverage that knowledge.

  We had failed to value our most precious property. There was an air of listlessness in the area, with the exception of a very enthusiastic Mr Dubey, who seemed to love his job. People seemed strangely resigned to their lot. For miles on end, one could pass vast tracts of nothingness, interspersed with modest land holdings and tiny vegetable patches growing white radish and cauliflower. Our people looked poor… were poor… had always been poor… would they remain poor?

  Mr Dubey proudly pointed out stone carvers creating complex grilles, doorways and pillars from the famous pink sandstone of the area. ‘It was Emperor Shah Jahan who made pure white marble fashionable,’ Mr Dubey chuckled. ‘Till then, pink was the favoured colour… and when marble was used, it was black.’ We watched young men clad in threadbare clothes crouched over slabs of stone, their powerful arms and skilled hands gouging out designs going back centuries, for a pittance. Children who'd never been inside a schoolroom were taking a small break between lifting stones and sweeping the discarded dust from finished grilles. Their earnings were pitiful. Their eyes blank, their bellies bloated. ‘But at least they aren't starving,’ Mr Dubey said thoughtfully. Yes… at least they weren't starving.

  *

  That night, the hotel we were staying at had announced a ‘Grand X'mas Buffet’. It seemed somehow surreal to be in Agra, of all places, watching someone in a Santa suit, walking around the marble lobby of the five-star hotel, shaking hands with excited kids. In one corner, a lar
ge plastic X'mas tree, decorated with empty ‘gift boxes’ and discoloured cotton wool (‘snow’, don't you know?), glittered with strings of fairy lights. We sat at the bar and tried to get into the swing of things.

  A crooner dressed in festive red was belting out ‘I will survive,’ while other band members tried hard to simulate Ho-Ho-Ho cheer. I thought they were from the Philippines. ‘Oh no, madam… they are from Mizoram… they are Indian… but they don't look it,’ the manager brightly clarified. ‘They don't look it…’ Ooof! His words burned! What do ‘Indians’ look like, I asked myself. Did I look ‘Indian’ enough? Clearly, not… at least not in the eyes of all these officious guards and cops guarding Agra's precious monuments. I was constantly stopped and asked to prove my bonafides—and how does one do that? And why?

  Because an entrance ticket for ‘Indians’ is twenty bucks. And for foreigners, it's over 100. Armed as I was with a twenty-buck ticket, the minders who didn't accept my ‘Indianness’ insinuated that I was an imposter trying to short-change the government by eighty rupees. ‘Wrong tikkutt, wrong tikkutt… go back to counter… pay more,’ they'd barked. If I was subjected to this rubbish, with my unmistakably desi looks—I cannot imagine the haalat of all these Indians from the north-east. No wonder most ‘Chinese’ restaurants in our metros ‘import’ lovely young ladies from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Sikkim, and pass them off as the real thing from Beijing.

  Well, the little band in the lobby was not receiving too much encouragement from patrons on this special night, and my heart went out to the three, trying valiantly to keep the X'mas spirit alive by breaking into a medley of carols. At this point, a sweet English granny decided to take to the improvised patch of a dance floor with her visibly embarrassed granddaughter. Seeing their brave example, a few more foreigners decided to be sporting and shake a leg. I considered the option myself, but finally chickened out. We opted for the ‘grand buffet’. Strips (not slices) of turkey were gingerly presented in a dubious-tasting sauce. Limp veggies followed, and perhaps reading our disappointed expressions, the chef decided we should combine that with some no-nonsense daal-chawal and palak-paneer-naan. Okaaaay. I was fine with that… but when the waiter insisted on our eating X'mas pud with the rice, we decided to protest.