EP 3 What is India's new swagger all about?

[00:00:00] This is India a story in the making and I am your host, Levena Tandon.

[00:00:06] Adapting to change is not a quick fix.

[00:00:09] Brain takes time to clock in changes, at least mine does for sure.

[00:00:15] To case in point this whole custom of taking back chocolates for friends and family when

[00:00:19] you are coming back from abroad and in my case coming back from London, a must take

[00:00:25] gift and an easy gift to take.

[00:00:29] By default at the airport my feet would turn into the turbulent and ferroir ocean lint

[00:00:36] aisles and I would see it sneak in a few for myself and take huge packets for my friends

[00:00:41] and family and it brings smiles to the faces of people but apparently not anymore.

[00:00:47] When I ask my sister can I get them, it's an absolute ban from her side and it's just

[00:00:53] not sugar, that is the reason no norm for sugar because a lot of people are going no sugar

[00:00:58] no sugar.

[00:00:59] So it's not only that but she says you get everything here and she says why do you want

[00:01:07] to bring this whole back load of chocolates from the airport just buy it from here and give

[00:01:13] it to your friends?

[00:01:14] So once I ask my friend and he said yes I am in there, you get everything here.

[00:01:20] So what a difficult thing for us because when they are coming from India I want a lot

[00:01:25] of things.

[00:01:26] I want pickles, I want the potatoes, I want silver jewelry, I want food, I want masala,

[00:01:30] I want this and I want that and now they don't want anything from here.

[00:01:34] Now that's a huge problem for me.

[00:01:37] This whole difficulty of what contributes as gifts from London.

[00:01:42] In cut to the time long time back actually, don't gauge my age please.

[00:01:47] In my mom, my uncle used to come back from the US.

[00:01:51] First I remember that these memories are very old memories of first going to receive

[00:01:57] them at the airport and staying back for the customs, it should take a lot of time and

[00:02:02] I know that is very long but then this is not that long where we are sitting around them

[00:02:07] and lipsticks and makeup and perfumes and chocolates are coming around and it's like a family

[00:02:13] party.

[00:02:15] That scene doesn't exist anymore.

[00:02:18] There is a whole scene of me trying to find out what can I take for people abroad because

[00:02:23] people in India, sorry because there is Marks and Spencer, Mango, Zara, all chocolates,

[00:02:29] Tzu, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Omega, Armani, Dunhill, I don't know, most of the brands

[00:02:39] are now available in India.

[00:02:41] You know there might be a little bit of price markup, maybe not completely similar but

[00:02:46] quite similar I have to say.

[00:02:49] So while in the UK post-COVID, the high street brands were shutting down and are shutting

[00:02:55] down.

[00:02:56] In India there has been a search thanks to the consumer class.

[00:03:01] Then I clocked in what my first guest, Stefano Delakisa Disasca said when I asked him what

[00:03:10] word comes in his mind when he thinks about India, what one word and he said Lakshmi.

[00:03:16] First of all I was in splits thinking that he knew about this whole concept of Lakshmi

[00:03:21] and money and then thinking that when we talk of India, we have been talking of India

[00:03:28] forever as developing and also in abroad especially in the news stories when India is referred

[00:03:34] to often enough we see the visuals of poverty, stricken places and all of that and for someone

[00:03:40] to call that country with money or see as having money was weird, weird to the level of

[00:03:47] funny.

[00:03:49] But this is now the situation.

[00:03:51] I recently read in an article and if I am not wrong it was economic times that if one

[00:03:57] brand entered in 2020, in 2021 three foreign brands entered India in 2022 the number went

[00:04:06] up to 11 and in 2023 it has been over 20 brands.

[00:04:11] So if we look at a rough number the number of foreign brands entering India since 2020

[00:04:19] is to now is about 30 to 35 brands, no wonder people don't want gifts from here but we

[00:04:26] wanted from there.

[00:04:27] One might say this is not all pervasive, people still have a law for foreign gifts.

[00:04:33] For me in fact I have a law for gifts full stop and especially if they are coming from

[00:04:36] India please keep coming.

[00:04:38] There is a shift I see and that shift is in the pride and this is a new found pride I feel

[00:04:45] there is for what is made in India.

[00:04:47] Now keeping the made in India campaign aside, there's also these movements, the vegan movement

[00:04:55] and the call for sustainable fashion and the West looking at the East as far as well

[00:05:01] being and health and spiritualism is concerned yoga is a big thing, the world yoga day is a

[00:05:08] big thing.

[00:05:09] So all of this I feel has contributed to this new found pride about what is made in India

[00:05:18] and for me it completely works because I have always and forever been a fan of silver

[00:05:24] jewelry and hand loom and caddy and silk and all of that and this is now in fashion

[00:05:30] so I am in fashion so I have nothing to complain and secondly I have always wanted a

[00:05:37] mithai over cake and chocolates.

[00:05:41] So if someone is experimenting even further with sugar free and a lot of attention is there

[00:05:47] to make it healthier please keep coming actually I love all non-healthy also.

[00:05:54] So I just love mithai so I am so happy, I am in vogue and I can eat mithai with a lot

[00:06:01] of pride and not say I just a lot of sugar in it but apart from all of this economics

[00:06:05] and numbers somewhere this new found pride has played a huge role in findings like that

[00:06:10] of Morgan Stanley where they've called India the consumer, the office and the factory

[00:06:16] of the world.

[00:06:17] So we would be calling and I would be calling for sorting out my TV or electric or insurance

[00:06:24] and I would be incessantly speaking to someone sitting in Delhi or Bangalore and we would

[00:06:30] be having a nice conversation about idly doza food and weather and what not and saying

[00:06:36] hello to India.

[00:06:38] If they are loud sometimes they are not allowed to do all this deep conversations with us but

[00:06:44] it is very happy times for me to be speaking to people like this but there's also another

[00:06:50] side of it of course tax reductions, refunds and tax credits.

[00:06:54] So a lot of this is contributing to these factors but apart from pride I also see this whole

[00:07:03] thrust on education.

[00:07:04] Now I want to give you two scenarios when I was living in India my maid was also keen

[00:07:10] on education for her children and I was to say please bring your children here, I will

[00:07:14] teach them if you have a problem and so she was keen but as long as she didn't have

[00:07:19] to go out of the way to do it because a lot of the time children served as one of extra

[00:07:25] pair of hands for earning and this whole issue of child labour we had done a whole thing

[00:07:31] on it as well a question mark on child labour but that is a discussion aside.

[00:07:36] But to now my sister's nanny she travelled all the way miles away from her son so that

[00:07:44] she can send her son to a better school.

[00:07:47] So she is sacrificing being with her son so she can send her son to a better school

[00:07:53] and to be educated better.

[00:07:56] So this is a paradigm shift I feel.

[00:07:59] In our family education was huge, my father was a professor, my daughter or my uncle

[00:08:04] is a chemist and a scientist and the entire family is into education so education is

[00:08:09] a big thing and report card days were worst for me.

[00:08:14] So I remember recently I went to Dubai and met one of our neighbours he and me used to

[00:08:20] be playing conche as we call in India it's actually marbles, you just have a marble

[00:08:26] and you do from far ahead just point and focus into a kind of a hole.

[00:08:32] So we used to play conche all day long from 8 o'clock in the morning to 2 pm in the afternoon

[00:08:37] I used to be baked like a brownie in the sun and it didn't bother me to the slightest.

[00:08:42] My mother's callings or telling us didn't bother me to the slightest till we came to the

[00:08:47] report card day and he would get good marks and I would be oh my god I don't remember

[00:08:52] those days but yes so that's report card days were so terrible and then the options that

[00:08:59] we had or I was given was become a doctor, engineer and I.S.

[00:09:05] Now I failed in pre-meds, PMTS they are called and you're not allowed to tell this to anybody.

[00:09:12] Promise okay now I'll talk so engineering was not an option I was so good at maths that

[00:09:20] my maths teacher was thrilled at me getting 68% out of 100 in 10th boards and he came

[00:09:28] to congratulate me first before he congratulated the one who got 99 so that was my reputation

[00:09:36] in maths.

[00:09:37] I.S. was not an option I was not bothered.

[00:09:40] I was quite happy doing something where I could play marbles or have listened to radio

[00:09:46] I used to be told off for listening to radio so I had to listen to radio I used to use

[00:09:52] radio like a pillow and be listening to the songs and the battery was gone in the morning

[00:09:57] and I would get a telling off again so something to do with radio and debating and talking

[00:10:04] to people making connections I used to be going to all aunties in the world getting all

[00:10:09] the all what they were saying and talking to them getting all the hover.

[00:10:13] So somewhere that hover world has worked for me and I became a journalist of course nothing

[00:10:17] to do with marble yet maybe that is one option still remaining nonetheless these were the

[00:10:23] options a cut to today when we ask our maids or parents or any one children about careers

[00:10:29] they want to be footballers they want to be cricketers they can they want to be wrestlers

[00:10:34] singers stand up comedian and even youtuber the career mindset has also had such a paradigm

[00:10:43] shift so pride in what is yours more thrust on education what you can do with that education

[00:10:53] also there is so much shift that's happened so especially in living in London when someone says

[00:10:59] oh Indian families, Tiger mums and the only options you are given is doctor, engineer, lawyer

[00:11:07] I think no no in India especially there's a lot of shift I hear that and even here

[00:11:15] the families are not thinking that way and this is where my guest for the next show

[00:11:22] becomes very very interesting this is a man who has been an investment banker but is now

[00:11:31] bringing education international education to the doorstep of whoever they are wherever they are

[00:11:38] so also he is training children to be league level football players but at the same time making

[00:11:48] sure that they have a backup of some educational degree Tim Fisher formal chairman of a

[00:11:55] coventry football club an investment banker and now a CEO of two companies that are doing all

[00:12:03] of this so please do tune in to my podcast which is available on any platform from Apple's

[00:12:12] Spotify bin spots to anywhere or on this channel youtube and listen to what Tim has to tell me I

[00:12:21] want to ask him what makes India investible and when the whole world is thinking of tech

[00:12:26] and infrastructure to invest in India why is he thinking of education and sports so it's going

[00:12:33] to be an exciting and interesting episode so do tune in thank you take care and God bless

[00:12:40] listen to my podcast audio on Apple Spotify bin spots or wherever you get your podcasts from

[00:12:48] and watch the video of the podcast on my youtube channel Levina Tandon new episodes are out every Sunday