All in the family way

The morphed joint family - or almost neutral family - is India's greatest consumer as it notches up sales for a designer lifestyle on credit

BS Research Bureau

That the new consuming class is the working class is no longer a secret, but that it is pipping the rich to the retail post has made the market look up with greater respect at the wage earner. But then, rich is a relative term, and the white-collar worker today has so many avatars, it's difficult to say who's credit rating is higher - the businessman in Ludhiana who has a successful trade in knitwear exports, or the morphed, professional family in Noida with as many incomes as the number of members contributing to a pool kitty who pay tax returns that would gladden the heart of Jaswant Singh.

The new working class comes with incomes (not perks, that's passe) with more digits than middle school children can count on their fingers. They're also savvier, having discovered that the family that lives together has the added advantage of lower investments on setting up homes and higher spends for joint as well as individual consumption.

Unlike the saas-bahus of television soap operas, the wives too work; so chances of conflict are minimised, and domestic supervisors (the servants report to them) iron out the creases of day-to-day living. It makes for a happier, more satisfying lifestyle - exciting jobs, after-hours entertainment, pooled experience and expenses fed by interest-free loans on consumables that are devoured as the Indian family goes global.

It is no longer unusual for, say, a seven-member joint family (described as an "almost neutral family") to have five working members and one pensioner, a pool of funds that is responsible for a lifestyle that has become enviable by most international standards. Is it any wonder that the driveway is lined with at least as many cars, and even an SUV for weekend breaks that can be commandeered as the need arises.

Two-car families? That's a joke; working, consuming families have as many cars as the number of people in a home, and then some that are jointly purchased for effect - one good reason why the Hyundai Sonata, only recently considered "too opulent" for its obvious bodywork and silhouette, has become the commonplace staple of city roads. While the super rich wait for the launch of Mercedes' most expensive offering, suburban consumers are happy having too much of a good thing without having to worry about the price tag.

It's no longer discounts, but convenience, that are driving the market for this growing group of consumers. Stressed at work? Time for a break at one of the many spas at resort locations that are filling up faster than you can commission them. And at an average Rs 2,000 per massage, clearly the wallet isn't feeling a pinch, even if the last break was barely three months ago. You can hardly grudge these work-all-day, party-all-night workaholic consumers some R&R, especially since it's over a long weekend, involving no days off from work.

While the really rich still luxuriate at private villas on the Riviera, the pro-group Indian isn't just aspirational about labels, he's also the best brand ambassador you could have. The runaway success of Hugo Boss and Louis Vuitton are a case in point - you are what your brand says about you, discretion and subtlety be dammed.

The newest kid on the block on his first job at the call centre is the most obvious symbol of the consuming class: even before the first pay cheque has been credited to his account, a slew of EMI-charged peddlers have sold him everything from his car to a snazzier mobile, from club memberships to a resthaton cruise, from pens and dreams to extraordinary credit card limits.

And yet, these hardly draw comment when, on average, a Delhi student gets his own mobile in middle school, has limitless pocket money for entertainment that includes multiplex cinema tickets and Subway sandwiches a few times a week, is more familiar with the neighbourhood pool tables than the family dining table, watches his own TV in the privacy of his own room, and probably considers canvas PT shoes an alternative style statement. There are more Tequila shots being knocked back at pubs by underage teenagers, and while families may stay together, they live and entertain apart, not separated so much by generational angst as the need to be with friends who think in Givency mindsets.

For those looking in, there are telltale trends to be mapped from the obvious consumption so apparent in the cities. No longer do people buy an apartment, or a house, and then shift in: the designer is the first bonafide visitor who will proceed with the finesse of a demolition army, trashing everything, and going on a buying spree that would put the average wedding trousseau to shame. Who wants ordinary ceramic sinks any more when the bathroom has become a style icon, with a jacuzzi as mandatory as fittings that are almost the cost of the home?

Rocks no longer refer to just the caratage of the diamonds in your ears, but could equally mean the Italian marble that has to be laid on the kitchen floors (polished wood, not parquet, is the preferred lounge choice), and artworks is serious business: a consultant to tell you Arpita Singh, or Bhupen Khakar for immediate gains, Manisha Gera or Jittish Kallat with an eye to the future, comes with the deal. Italian kitchen fittings and lights, silver and gold-wash fixtures, antique kilims, Alessi lemon squeezers or fly swatters - the life of the stylish is also the life of the designer branded.

The Indian is still quick to the bargain, only time is forever running out, so no one seems to have the energy or the patience to have furniture designs copied from catalogues any more. Also, it's such a middle-class thing to do, the working consumers at the higher ends of the scale turn up their pretty noses (which may or may not have been shaped by a surgeon's scalpel) at such pettiness.

Thankfully, there are Yash Birla's extraordinarily uncomfortable sofas in Mumbai that have a high desire potential, or Brix and Interiors Espania where you can shop for imported furniture off the shelf. Or, should you prefer celebrity status, there's the Gujral family in Delhi that can give you everything from farmhouse to paintings to sculpture to interiors and furniture at one shot (and is also a very good example of the working consumer family, in turn). Mumbai has its own Pooja Bedi or, if you're willing to take the risk, Parveen Babi, and the signature on the upholstery can track your popularity tachometer the way no artist can.

Fashion is another barometer that sets those who know their labels apart from those who don't, and for people who wondered if designer pret would ever work in India, the increasing number of designer discount sales (50 per cent off on the last ramp's showings) should prove decisively that you are whom you wear.

In a country barred from labels for years, the first inroads by mass labels may have turned the markets into a chaotic Hong Kong mall, but ever since Swarovski-met-denim in a designer back-alley, the Rs 20,000 pair of jeans has become as commonplace as Levi's panty-showing Sykes that, months after its debut, is already as stale as yesterday's dosa.

The power of corporate dressing is for the mid-segment sales guy who's signature is the knock-on-the-door Amway product line or Aquaguard water purifier system. For grabbing eyeballs, the Rs 2,000 shirt could be a Rohit Gandhi, the Rohit Bal crushed linen trousers cheap at Rs 6,000 a pair, while a tie must cost more than your whole ensemble, and no wedding can be complete unless the sherwanis are off Raghuvendra Rathore's designer rack, and perish the thought you might have to repeat them at a cousin's wedding - they're strictly for a one-night peep, as discardable as soiled toilet paper.

Crossroads is where you go to ogle PYTs as they bunk college, and malls is where the lowlife hang out for the free air-conditioning in power-starved Delhi, but the style designer address is 1, MG Road where even the sales girls have attitude, and there's more style-on-hanger than all of Beverly Hills put together.

The rich are different, but the working consumer family is more so - discerning, as well as trendy, disdainful of what worked yesterday but is old-hat today, wanting its holidays not in obvious European capitals or South-east Asian resorts, but in unpronounceable backwaters where luxury is the only requirement (think of what the average American would make of Vanyavilas in Ranthambhore).

From luxury Swiss watches to plasma TVs, from rare pets to Bose music systems, from expensive jewellery to more expensive mobile phones, they're willing to put their credit cards where their mouth is, and never rue the day. Cars for a crore or more? The government may not have the roads for it, but the Indian heart is large enough to absorb the cost anyway.

Besides, they're just what the Panvel farmhouse needs, as long as you're happy with the Pajero road buster at your countryside hideout, and have a Ferrari or two stashed away in the garage of your Parisian apartment on Champs Elysses - well worth the price when you consider how many family and friends will benefit from both the accommodation as well as owning your own set of wheels.

If it's trendy to have a butler to look after your guests at home, its even better to make sure the brats are at an expensive boarding out of sight, so your Murano and Rosenthal stays safe (the dogs are too well trained to cause any harm). Friends home for dinner? Rent-a-celebrity chef, have a bartender and, should the mood be good, the Monty routine is just a phone call to an event manager away - but this article is about money, not sex, though who says money can't buy you a bit of loving too?

Restaurants mean fewer meals at home, and chefs who cook are the Michelin equivalents of Indian gourmet-land where from truffles to trout are on the menu. Personal trainers, meditation mornings, home gyms and gym memberships, golf and tennis and squash for a buddy bonding reason - India is changing and reinventing itself with the whiff of Rs 20,000 an ounce of aroma squeeze. Personal spending is no longer about decadence, it's about coming of age, of new style czars who don't mind spending - cash, credit or cheque, it's all in the family way.

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