Change Inc

LIFESTYLE

Where the lunching ladies kitty party today, they used to play mah-jong "" immensely popular a few decades ago when the working woman was still someone you gossiped about. Clubs held centre-stage, and bridge was a gentleman's game of passion that told you as much about your colleagues as golf does today.

But the seventies and eighties were different most of all because you could still buy an Anjolie Ela Menon for Rs 500, fashion meant dreadful dog-collar shirts that pinched at the waist (India Inc's hippy phase that lasted longer than the flower children themselves), and discs played Abba and BoneyM instead of the Hindi film hits everyone secretly listened to behind closed doors.

There were few restaurants, so hotel coffee shops were where everyone drifted for a club sandwich and a shake, and prohibition meant that bars were out of bounds for all but the foreigners too embarrassed to drink in the company of their Indian guests, who had to sip their vodkas suitably disguised in their nimbu-panis.

The only available brand of jeans was Blue Lagoon (after the movie), but you ripped off the label and tried to pass them off as Levi's. Bruce Lee movies were huge hits, and Zeenat Aman was a style diva who ripped the Irma la Douce role as Manoranjan's fun-loving prostitute and became everyone's lust object.

There were drugs on campus and Dharmendra beat up gossip columnist Devyani Choubal, but there was also an innocence and naivete in an India that wanted to ape the West but didn't have the wherewithal for it.

Designer homes meant oodles of Bohemian and Czech crystal, and Mirzapuri carpets from wall-to-wall, and a stereo in the living room meant you were hip and had jam sessions. An imported car, no matter how ramshackle, ensured your status in the eyes of the durwan.

The nineties changed the way we were forever. Suddenly, India was Indian and proud of it. From channels in Hinglish to nightclubs where Daler Mehendi rocked crowds to cross-dressers and bar-entertainers, a new, hard edge tinged society. It mattered more that you were seen to be having a good time, rather than actually having a good time.

Fashionistas and designers took over all life "" from specialists to do your nails to pierced navels and songs with thongs on TV, entertainment and style became brittle and brash. Mommas pushed their little darlings on stage, and brands began to proliferate "" first in middle India, and then in those niche markets where a suit was the equivalent of the cost of a car.

As modern India juggles to find its place in the sun, it is complacent about both its culture and its modernity. It wears both on its sleeve. And as the India rage scours the world, one cannot help wondering: are Indians happier now then they were in the decades before? Hazard a gue ss...