A Twilight Zone Moment
Juhi called to tell me the wedding was on and that I should wear traditional clothing. I told her no problem. I was ecstatic, in fact. This would be my first Indian wedding. I didn’t have a sari waiting in the closet (actually still don’t and working on that) but I had acquired a satisfactory collection of the long kurta-panjama-pant-and-scarf-worn-backward outfits so commonly associated with north India. People in the know call them salwar kameez.
So I picked the outfit in my closet I thought was the fanciest: black, white and with just a hint of silver threading and embroidery. I thought it was a classy look, even elegant. Now looking back, I realize it was likely viewed by my hosts as boring, tame and under dressed to their colorful, shall we say, ornately designed outfits that don’t have a 'hint' of anything.
Juhi told me I needed to show up at her north Delhi home (way north, like another auto rickshaw ride past the last metro stop, north) at 5 p.m. It was hours before the wedding began at 9 p.m. I had to show up early because it was also her birthday — her 15th birthday — and I absolutely had to be there to meet all of her friends. “You will come, yes?” she asked.
Perhaps this seems odd, coming from a 25-year-old stranger to the eager and considerably younger host, but I was equally excited about the birthday invitation. I was warmed by her and her family’s hospitality and gentle curiosity of me, a foreigner and a single women (gasp!) who ended up so many miles away from home and family. I was curious to learn more about Juhi, too.
I met Juhi randomly and very early on in my time here when I visited Amritsar, the holiest of pilgrimage sites for Sikhs.
It’s the locale of the Golden Temple and on the border with Pakistan. Juhi and her younger sister, Kamal, were the umpteenth pilgrims who approached me and Adrienne, the stand out white tourists, with giggles and perfectly executed questions in English: “What’s your good name?” Where are you from?” “Why are you here?” “Do you like it?” “Can we take a photo?” Their mother joined in the friendly interrogation with a smile and attempted to communicate with her few words of English until body language and hand gestures took over. Their father stayed in the background, smiling a big wide grin. I realize now, apparently embarrassed by his limited English.
Through the line of questioning we discovered that we all lived in Delhi. Juhi immediately grabbed pen and paper and wrote down her address. She said it was near the Park Hotel. I thought that meant right next to the five star Park Hotel in central Delhi, meaning they lived in one of the huge bungalows in the area. I thought they were Wealthy. That’s right. Wealthy, with a capital W. Turns out, they live near the one star CITY Park Hotel, on the outskirts of Delhi.
It turns out, Juhi's family, is a quintessential member of the emerging Indian "middle class". It's that elusive "middle class" that the media keeps talking about, but depending on demographics and qualitave factors, it can shift and refer to a number of different groupings of people. Regardless, the middle class here has very little to do with American middle class families, complete with picket fences and mowed lawns. Juhi and her family live on the second floor of a government sponsored apartment complex and I label them "middle" class because, they are a four-member family and reside in a four room home. They have a living room, and count 'em — two bedrooms — which means they have the luxury of giving their children a seperate room to sleep, dress and store their clothes and keep-sakes. They also have a kitchen, one bathroom and even have a computer. No Internet, yet.They do, however, have one cell phone the whole family shares. Juhi's father manages (perhaps owns) the local taxi stand. Her mother is a teacher.
When I arrived at 5 p.m. for Juhi's birthday, decked in my salwar kameez, Juhi and her friends had just returned from school. They attend a private school (probably subsidized in some way) and were all sporting knee high socks and kilts. Juhi was giddy. The other girls, curious but not as chatty. They ran back to their various apartments to change and when the girls returned they were sporting flare jeans, cutesy t-shirts, and big bejeweled earings. (My observation is that when it comes to style, it's go bling, or go home.) They could be teenagers anywhere.The birthday "party," I found out was to be a hang out session at the newly built mall across the street from Juhi's apartment. This was Juhi's third time going to the mall since it opened six months earlier. It was her first trip there without her parents. Apparently the fact that I was in attendance was key to this arrangement.
Image of a New Delhi mall. The one I went to was
much smaller.
So, there we were. Me, the farang (foreinger), in my traditional Indian garb, and they, the teenagers in their very hip outfits, gabbing in Hindi (probably about the boys across the floor) in a two story mall on the outskirts of Delhi. I was settling into my role as token-foreign-friend-to-show-off, come chaperone, when we stepped on the lone escalator. It was catty-cornered and took up half the space on the bottom floor, as if it was partly there as a conversation piece. Juhi broke from her girl-talk to ask if I was nervous about the ride up the stairs.
"Nervous?," I repeated.
"Yeah, I am. It's only my second time on them, the moving stairs," Juhi said.
And bam. Just when you think you could be anywhere in the world, you realize where you are.
("Moving stairs" which only arrived with the malls and the subway are something of an amusement park ride for a good portion of the population who visit Delhi from rural or poorer pockets of the city. I once held the hand of a woman wearing a sari on her first escalator ride in the subway. To be frank, I would be nervous about riding the stairs, too, if I was clothed in one big long piece of fabric, hanging on the ground that could easily get snagged.)
Juhi really liked me. She, I think, saw something of a role model in me. She told me later she couldn't really identify with her mother, a woman from a small village who spoke little English. She kept saying a phrase I have heard often from young women who are constricted by family finances and traditional values: "I want to be a modern woman." She wanted an older sister. Someone female who could help her navigate the future she is being offered by the country's growing economy but that doesn't always coincide with the values and lifestyle of her mother's past. Clearly, I'm not the person who can help her negotiate that path. She will have to mold this identity for herself.
So, as not to leave you hanging about the Indian wedding experience...
In typical Indian fashion the wedding started a few hours late, around midnight. Well, the crowd showed up around 10 p.m. and I was dutifully introduced to every single guest who proceeded to ask me the same three questions (good name, which country, married?). Oh and they fed me. A lot. But I say the wedding started at midnight because that's when the bride and groom finally paraded in with fanfare. Though, none of the guests really payed attention. They were too busy dancing or eating. The major gift to the bride and groom, prominently displayed at the bride's apartment, was a brand new two-wheeler ( a motorbike).
Juhi said they would be happy.
Some business thoughts on India's middle class from the McKinsey Global Institute:
India’s rapid economic growth has set the
stage for fundamental change among the country’s consumers. The same
energy that has lifted hundreds of millions of Indians out of desperate
poverty is creating a massive middle class centered in the cities. A
new study by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) suggests that if India
continues its recent growth, average household incomes will triple over
the next two decades and it will become the world’s 5th-largest
consumer economy by 2025, up from 12th now. (The full report, The ‘Bird of Gold’: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market, is available free of charge online.)
Along the way, spending patterns will shift significantly as
discretionary purchases capture a majority of consumer spending.
India’s potential should make it a high priority for most consumer
goods businesses, but to succeed in this complex market they must
overcome major challenges.
(Unfortunately, having some weird difficulty downloading photos. Will remedy this soon.)
