Baby Boom vs. Tech Boom

Quickie Trivia:
q) What do Donald Trump, Sylvester Stallone, Candice Bergen (the orginal columnist of Sex and the City) and Kathleen Casey Kirschling have in common?

a)They will all turn 60 in 2006.

Nowhere famous as the forementioned names, Kathleen Casey Kirschling is  still a super-star in her own rights. For Kirschling was born one second past midnight on Jan 1, 1946 and thus crowned,  The first baby boomer in America's history.

She has made numerous TV appearances, interviewed for magazines and it wouldn't be surprising if she has signed a  couple hundred autographs. All fame attributed to being the first baby-boomer.

According to the Inquirer, the oldest baby-boomers will turn 60 at at rate of 7918 a day. (330 an hour) in 2006.  Marketing companies, trend experts and management gurus have long targetted the aging boomers, and an entirely new consumer market has emerged specifically to cater the baby-boomers now entering old age. (to be politically correct)

The baby-boom era was marked by a consumerist avalanche- young soldiers returning from war rushed into marriage and started their families  younger.  Jobs were plentiful, wages were higher and the energy was abundant. A robust economy encouraged a higher spending power. Families bought houses and settlements shifted to suburbs. Young men and women became fiercly independent , spent more, saved more and had fun. In Kirschling's words, "We had a great, great ride. We dared."

Reading about the boomers, reminded me about the current state of India. Tech-power has become synanmous with India. Even man-power, if you will.  (Ernst and Young just bought a couple hundred of its employees from India to work in their American offices for the tax season. These employees are paid the same wages they are paid India - which probably account to a measly $500 - $1000/month. Their American counterparts, for the same amount of work are paid a couple hundred percent more. But that is another issue!)

India is a contradiction by itself- even though it nurtures one of the oldest cultures, it is still a very young country that has yet to realize its full potential.

NYT did a 4-part special report on the recent infrastructural, social and economic changes in India. An interviewee for the articles drew  a parellel between the 1950's post-war consumermist America and the current 2005, post-BPOs/ tech-boom, consumerist India. I couldn't agree more.

Having recently visited Bombay, I can vouch that the new energy bubbles in the atmosphere. With young graduates nailing high salaries with multi-national companies, middle-class families affording vacations to Mauritius and Hong-Kong, small-business (like that of my father's) finding it harder and harder to survive, every third graduate targetting Australia, England or USA for "future" studies, plethora of airlines and cheap airfares, hollywood movies releasing the same day in India as in America (just a few years back, it took atleast a couple of months for new H-wood releases to arrive in India!), the youth becoming more experimental with their career choices and freely adopting the roles of a chef, a hair-stylist, a jewelery designer and journalists --- I have every reason to believe and expect that this change will permeate through the tiniest and farthest villages of India.

During the baby-boom era in America, the sale of gadgets was the highest.  The tech-boom India has seen a rise in sale of television sets, washing   machines and cars -available to the mass Indians via simple loans or monthly payment options. Young American families invested in houses. Like wise, young  Indian professionals
are buying property in India and the boundaries of cities keep expanding.

In America right now, luxury has gone mass. An average woman can afford a Stella McCartney skirt, an Issac Mizrahi sandal or a Karim Rashid designed object. In India, luxury has been re-defined. Hyper-marts, food marts, something akin to Wal-marts (cheap prices) and malls have become the new backdrop for social occasions. Indians are thinking more and more about American-style affluence.

My reaction to this change is neither positive nor negative. It was, meant to happen. It is a social and economic evolution. But the only part that surprises me most is-  it all happened so suddenly! In four years to be precise. I left India in 2001 and even though I have returned often, I always see drastic changes. Like the time they made wearing seat-belts compulsory in Bombay. Or maybe, living outside of India gives me a better, sharper and an outsider's perspective on its growth.

The young Indians echo the baby-boomer's attitudes and aspirations. They are willing to dare, and they want to have fun. They have abundant  choices and opportunities. And most of all, they have bigger and shiner dreams. So yes, this generation of Indians  will be immortalized as the ones who dared. And give it a couple of years before little Indian boys and girls read about the Tech-boom years from 2002- whenever, in their history text-books.

For more voices on the changes in India,  go here.

Comments

[Vivek]

Nice article!

"So yes, this generation of Indians will be immortalized as the ones who dared"
Makes me proud to have been born during the time that I did!

[Kush Tandon]

If you have been away and then you go back to India, you will tend see differences in a more clearer way than being part of it.

Thanks for the submission.

[Kush Tandon]

a small typo:

Katleen was born in 1946, not 1964.

[Jinal Shah]

Vivek - The pride is mutual :)

Kush - Thanks! I've corrected that now.