BOTTOMLINE: Self reliance a distant memory as foreign brands hold sway

Gandhi Jayanti and lure of the dollar shop

Sharad Mistry

Earlier this month, on October 2, India paid homage to the Father of the Nation, silently, both literally and figuratively. Figuratively, because the majority of young and earning Indians continued to swoon over shelves overflowing with those sinfully attractive phoren goodies that Mahatma Gandhi had once said should be thrown out of the country if it was to be made self-reliant. Fired with a sense of patriotism and heeding his words, millions of his followers then did burn foreign goods and drive the foreign rulers out of the country.
Laughing matter in these days of liberalisation, eh?

Well, Gandhi was also seen in one of his many famous pictures, allowing himself to be gleefully led by a young boy with his own stick, both smiling brightly. Figuratively, this picture also shows that the Father of the Nation had many hopes of the younger generation, which is usually expected to and sometimes does take the nation forward.

But two generations after the death of the Father of the Nation, one youngster was overheard saying to his friend: “Gandhi ke marne ka kuchh to faida hota hai apne ko (we do get some benefit from Gandhi’s death).”

October 2 is a national holiday. For want of better things to do on a holiday, stressed parents try to make their family happy by taking them either to gardens, which, in metros, are very few and barren of greenery, or to shopping malls in upmarket areas, which are increasingly overflowing with foreign brand names — sinfully attractive to both the eyes and the purse.

And the lure is all the more attractive from the cheap Chinese goods that have begun flooding, not just the streets of Indian metros, but also the country’s mini-metros. Without fancy packing, the Chinese goodies outprice other phoren goods.

Aware of the drawing power of phoren goods, a canny small-time entrepreneur in one of the upmarket suburbs in Mumbai has even set up a Dollar Store. Nothing US about the Dollar Store, except the name. Instead, the partners (of the shop) sell Chinese goods — hairbrushes, utensil scrubbers, spanners, geometry boxes, handbags, et al. Wrapped in a plain transparent plastic sheet, each of these are sold for Rs 49 (the inflated exchange rate for one US dollar, which, in the foreign exchange market, is officially quoted at around Rs 48) and some other more classy goods at Rs 98 (two US dollars).

Given the kind of goods the phoren goods maniacs get from their Indian manufacturers, and the prices at which they are sold here, these Chinese goods were seen as a “real steal”, and the consumers made several rounds of the shop to see if there was something more that they required.

Interestingly, while the children and their friends were roaming out on the mall street, wearing Reeboks and munching Swiss chocolates, their parents were thronging at the Dollar Store. The crowd at the Dollar Store was much more than that at a few other similar stores in the vicinity collectively, which too sold genuine, well packaged, phoren stuff.

Consider this as the joy of window shopping or otherwise, but the lure of phoren goods continues to make the palms of most Indians itch, more so on Gandhi Jayanti!