Kanika Datta: Lessons in a dhaba

SWOT

The dusty, fly-blown dhaba is hard to distinguish from the many others that dot Gurgaon's rough-hewn landscape. Yet nobody can accuse it of lacking ambition.

It proudly bears the label GlobalVantedge Dhaba and its signboard confidently offers customers, inter alia, such gourmet preparations as "Maghi Vaig", "Maghi Chiken" and so on. Should you desire "dalivery sarvice", there is a "contect" number as well.

The appropriation of the name is easy to understand since no doubt the eatery draws the bulk of its service from one of the many large ITES operations that have put this suburban city on the global map. "Maghi" was harder to understand, until enquiry revealed that it was a dhaba version of Nestle's trademark dehydrated noodles.

Maghi Vaig, as you might have figured, is the local phonetic spelling for Maggi Veg. None of the sophisticated "tastemakers" the multinational offers in sachets can match this preparation in terms of taste; indeed, I am confident Nestle would probably mint a fortune if it could retail a dhaba version of Maggi.

What is striking about this dhaba, however, was not just the enterprise this dhaba-owner has shown "" to be sure there is no shortage of this quality in India (incidentally, there are many clones of this dhaba in the city offering the same fare).

But the manner in which he runs his business illustrates the gulf of understanding between politicians who oppose economic reform and the people whose interests they purport to protect. In many ways, this dhaba could be considered a typical example of the contradictions in our attitudes and approach to economic reform.

The owner of GlobalVantedge Dhaba does not hold a B-school degree, nor is he likely to hold views on economic liberalisation. But his entrepreneurial instincts cannot be faulted. Like many such petty businessmen all over the country, he intuitively does not regard foreign investment as a threat but a lucrative and creative opportunity.

He not only derives profits from a 24X7 operation set up with foreign investment and propelled by reforms in telecom policy, he is able to turn a global brand "" which Nestle has no doubt spent crores to build! "" into a rewarding local business proposition. What is more, he uses a mobile phone "" another FDI-derived novelty "" to extend the reach of his business and offer value-added service.

In fact, if he suffers it is because of the lack of state-provided benefits that could alter his business from a rudimentary, somewhat unhygienic, low-cost eatery into a restaurant with minimum standards. He lacks power, running water and, in lieu of taxes, probably pays petty officials a sizeable unofficial rent from his daily earnings to keep his business going.

Only his low overheads would make ends meet. The irony is, that this ragged representative of India's vast informal economy, with his precarious knowledge of English, suffers much the same problems as almost any entrepreneur in India, big or small "" poor public infrastructure, harassment by petty state officials et al. This is, in a sense, a highly scaleable issue.

Gurgaon in itself represents a microcosm of the "governance deficit" in most of India. The city is teeming with examples of the spin-off benefits that economic reform has created. The perilously speeding call centre vehicles represent a demand-driven boom in private transport services, indirectly propelling the automobile industry.

The shining glass and concrete office buildings and malls have played a significant role in driving the construction industry and providing employment (however transient) to the huge population of migrant labour.

Hundreds of young men and women who would otherwise be over-qualifying themselves for a hitherto limited job market now find a range of employment in call centres, malls and in the burgeoning hospitality business. Looking at all of this, it is easy to believe that India is really making its tryst with destiny, if not quite in the Nehruvian paradigm.

Look down and the dream abruptly ends in roads that would put rural tracks in the shade. Power is all but non-existent, piles of garbage almost vie in height with the soaring multi-storeyed complexes and water supply is beginning to emerge as a problem in pockets.

Like Mumbai, it is almost as though policy makers are willfully determined not to allow enterprise to flourish, and they leverage the excuse of the harmful effects of foreign competition on the Common Man to explain away a wide range of inactivity. If they visited GlobalVantedge Dhaba just once, they'd understand that no one in India is afraid of competition; they only want the means to compete effectively themselves.

The views expressed are personal