FLAUNTING RICHES

Birthday present of a jet place to the wife. And yet by another a yacht. Building a home for Rs. 800 crores. Having palatial mansions in various cities of world and India. Companies buying jet planes for the exclusive use of their CEOs. Spending over 50 crores of rupees towards the marriage of the off spring. Buying a handbag costlier than that of a car. The list goes on. Some of the rich Indians have now got out of the inhibition of parading their wealth.

Naturally such incidents are widely reported in the English media. But then English media has only limited reach. But when these incidents are reported in the TV, particularly the vernacular channels, then reach becomes very high or widespread.

The reaction of viewers would be mixed. ‘ Why not, when these people can afford it ‘ - general reaction of upward mobile people. ‘ It is against the Indian culture ‘ - this is the view of by far the largest segment of Indians. ‘ They have earned it, so it is for them to do what they like, this has been the trend world-over, it is peanuts compared to the extremely lavish style in which kings lived just a hundred years back, spending leads to economic activity, etc., etc.,’ would be some other comments. Generally old people look askance at such exhibition of wealth, whereas youngsters tend to take the same in their stride.

However, it cannot be denied that such actions have social implications, particularly in country like India with extreme poverty, more so since TV is reaching every nook and corner of the country.

When kings ruled the country before merger of their kingdoms with India, people ( subjects ) looked at the kings with awe, fear and reverence. The kings had the power of life and death of their subjects. The courtiers of some of the kings even propagated the myth that the kings were progenies of this or that God, which many of the subjects believed also. Hence the term jealousy had no place in those times in the way of thinking of people towards their kings.

At that time even the courtiers, mofussil chiefs, and others including landlords and businessmen, while living in style far above the levels of ordinary people but much below that of the kings did hardly evoke any resentment among ordinary folks because the same was within the ambit of the expected and accepted.

Then came independence of the country. Politicians, instead of kings became rulers,. However, the subjects continued to hold their erstwhile kings with same awe as before. Over a period of time awe was replaced by respect.

Politicians of the immediate post independent era were of high integrity and lived simple lives.

Slowly business people started to live extravagantly which was looked at askance by politicians but ordinary people accepted the position in their stride but not with awe, as was the case in respect of kings.

The present scenario. Erstwhile kings are no more revered by their erstwhile subjects. Politicians became corrupt and amassed wealth but as most of them continued to live in simple style, jealousy was not in the psyche of people when they viewed the politicians.

Business people went on acquiring wealth. But it is only during the last decade or so that they started exhibiting wantonly their wealth. Palatial bunglows, luxury cars, frequent foreign jaunts, opulent marriages etc., are exhibited now with panache. This metamorphosis was quick and required time was not there for slow adjustment and take the same in their stride for people to the changes in the style of living of rich. It need to be noted that till a few years back ostentatious living and vulgar display of riches were frowned upon by most of the Indians, including those who had riches. There is no attempt to under play or hide the exhibitionist culture. And it is widely believed that this is done out of ill gotten lucre.

As the eminent writer Santosh Desai has written:

“Is anything vulgar any more. The idea of vulgarity has been appropriated as an epithet to be used by groups with extreme views on how other should behave.



To pronounce something vulgar was to banish it from the ranks of the civilized, by deeming things to be inappropriate rather than illicit.

Watching the IPL auctions and the media interviews thereafter, I was struck by the absence of that world from our active vocabulary today. Here we had a spectacle where the richest and the most glamourous body shopped the purest and the most talented by bidding on them. There was a television interview, with the owners all resplendent in designer glasses talking about their acquisitions. In the entire interaction, there was not a trace of self-consciousness about what was happening. After all, they were rich and beautiful and they had already bought Ferraris so why not sport stars now? The market in India is not content to be an invisible mechanism but wants to strut around dressed in gaudy finery. Wealth becomes real only when displayed. Money seems to create a vicarious thrall.

In the Television, unseemly squabbles between bit-has-beens and obscure never-will-bes, comedy routines based on cross-dressing jokes full of bawdy suggestiveness, high pitched melodramatic theatrics by reality show judges who are forever moving between tantrums, exploitive headlines in the name of investigative reporting on news channels, up-the-skirt camera angles used to cover a new sporting phenomenon called the cheerleader, the list is a long, long one.

The legitimacy of money and its ability to speak in a uniform voice, has blunted the sharp differences that existed earlier. The security once derived from one’s social class which made money secondary is no longer as much in evidence.

Television as a medium too hastens the move to privilege the quantitative over the qualitative. The TRP, which is a superficial measure of viewership, determines television content today; it is more important how many people watch rather than what kind influence a channel is able to exert.

In a world full of diverse people, there can be no uniform standard of good taste. One person’s aspiration can so easily be another person’s

vulgarity.”

It could be said that with the increase in the number of affluent people, level of affluence in the country going up and changing values, this trend is to be expected, as had happened in rich countries.

As is human nature, this change would also be taken in its stride in due course.

15. Yet one feels uneasy at this development, more so in a country like India with too many poor who are subsisting with unimaginable poverty. In that context the above mentioned change becomes an eye sore, which could have negative social implications. It is so and hence this emerging culture has to be deplored.

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