‘Great’ is a very big word. In fact, it’s the greatest big word.
The Indian middle class earned the epithet some time back, perhaps as a middle
name, albeit put in the front. We are the spree shopping, holiday hopping, caviar
craving, boom boxing, truffle tasting, Jaguar jetting, mansions making Great
Indian Middle Class. Getting bigger in size and the size of our pockets, perpetually
upwardly mobile, holidaying in Amsterdam not Agra, buying gold online, sending our
children to fully air-conditioned schools and we deserve to be called ‘Great’.
Now, economics is a new word for me, socio-economic even newer
and socio-political economics by far the newest and the most exotic sounding. So
such reasons for rise of the middle class I understand not. But there are 2 other
reasons behind this ascent which you may consider – our undying capacity to store
the old and our strong will to preserve the new.
Storage of Old
If storage is not next to godliness for you, you are not the
middle class I’m talking about. Throwing something that has lived its life is a
sin, and re-using it in a different capacity good family upbringing. Be they objects
or traditions, we have enough storage or plenty recyclable ideas to
rehabilitate what maybe needs to see the inside of a trash can, but should not Oh
God forbid! So what do we all have in common? We have at least 2 trunks of
different sizes full of quilts of yore, their covers galore and linen with obsolete
patterns, with the smaller trunk perhaps carrying old-fashioned woolens and
jackets we wore back when Big B was smaller and releasing his first movie. We
have 2 pairs of boxes in beds – always a pain to open (since more than one
mattress lays over it, why throw!) – brimming over with rejected old clothes,
gifts we hated but want to gift still, a handful of shapeless pillows and maybe
some T-shirts to be cut-open as rags one day. If we were to put the contents of
our trunks and bed-boxes combined into one pile, it would reach Mars then the
Asteroid belt and then back home. And then there is the fridge taking the cake,
and many other delicacies, for bringing out the art of storing-fitting-piling-packing
in us! Left-over food tastes delicious the next day, or the day after the next.
(If you haven’t heard this at home, you don’t belong here!) So bowls and boxes
all sizes scientifically balanced in every corner of the fridge to store what
may just be eaten the next day. Why waste? If Mr’s wholly holed vests can come
in handy for something so can those 2 spoons of dal mixed with 1 of bhindi
in the tiny katori. And if the fridge
dies on you (or more likely go on strike for being over-worked) it may turn
into a funky little cupboard in your child’s room – with one “drawer” for his
toys and another for namkeens and nutty
biscuits, to keep away from the prying maid’s eyes – unplugged but totally alive.
Preservation of New
The great Indian middle class welcomes anything new, after
the old is stored and stowed away and ample space is made. New ideas, traditions,
fashions, rituals and vehicles - nothing is free, or even cheap, and everything
comes at a price. So why remove the plastic covers from your new luxury car
seats before the red swastika on the bonnet has faded for 2 seasons or 2 years,
whichever comes first? Why keep the new sofa exposed to a guestless existence
when you can clothe them in sheets from the box-beds and keep them shining as
new under the veil? Why waste the new dress in the next kitty, when we can
preserve it for the next big family wedding and in bigger cameras to be seen?
New shoes in shoe boxes, new appliances in crochet covers and new crockery only
for VIPs. Even newer newspapers and magazines in a separate pile from the older
ones! Preservation of new is a step even more advanced and precarious than the
storage of the old. And it must be done, for preservation is even better than
cure. Or something like that, anyway.
Hence, our plethora of collectibles - Inanimate Objects or Animated
Traditions – which we can remember and retrieve at opportune times to adapt and
adopt in the present times - help in making our Indian middle class greater and
greater each day. We’re never short of solutions, never scared of problems. We
have a tradition for every objective and an objective for every tradition, with
objects new and old to come in handy for both. We are the Great Indian Middle
Class, becoming greater. Because we are always prepared, for anything!
And who knows, maybe one day the contents of a certain trunk at home may get sold off as antiques. That day, perhaps, I too will be a BMW-er, standing on the same rung of the ladder as my neighbour, and an even greater part of the Great Indian Middle Class. But until then, I need help. Is it better to wrap-up my old chappals in weather-proof material for next Holi Milan or preserve my new ones for grocery shopping with the neighbour? Now, if that's not called being stuck in the middle, what is?
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