The Enterprising Indian

 The world’s largest democracy; a country where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line; the world’s fastest growing economy; Where a Majority of the population is deprived of healthcare and education… the rich cultural heritage, the iconic Freedom Movement, Mahatma Gandhi, the Taj Mahal, the “Unity in Diversity” and the home-grown civil system… India! All the Social Science textbooks that you scrupulously swallowed in school had wholesome feeds about our dear nation. The most intriguing of all such used-and-abused facts, I reckon, is that India is a land of 1.2 billion people. Oh yes, 1.2 billion and counting! Now, it isn’t the cause for the population explosion that intrigues me, of course, It Is the means that millions of unfortunately indigent people adopt to earn their bread and butter, or should I say, stale roti on their pitiable platter.

The food inflation’s up in the sky, so are the prices of property, banks don’t give enough interest on FDs, education has become a costly issue and employment barely bails out the aforesaid stuff… but hey, when Life’s to be spent in a road-side slum or a chawl at best, the appetite doesn’t dare dream of pulses-vegetables and there’s no education in the first place to find employment, existence is reduced to a simple affair- Earn to eat… and it is this single largest mission that propels people into an amazing world of ingenious businesses…

“Free Market”-Walk on any street and sway your head in diverse directions, you are sure to find a series of shops: clothing, electronic goods, bakery items, provisions, medicines etc. An overwhelming number selling everything that could be sold. Giving company to the shops is a flock of lawries, constellations of vegetable vendors and colonies of food joints! Besides, what’s an enterprise if not creative? So while one boasts of samosas and the other of sandwiches, there’s someone in their 100m radius who makes a fortune out of selling samosa sandwiches! Well, this is just an illustration that applies to a lot of other food items that the Indian tongues crave for and respective intestines get choked by… Streets notwithstanding, walk into some famous park. No shops or lawries in here… Nonetheless you‘ll find people” on the job”, making a living out of selling balloons and small plastic toys (not sure of the lead content in them given that the one holding ‘em day in and day out doesn’t seem to be affected by it) children selling one- rupee water pouches and the more astonishing of them all- An old man sat with a weight balance in front of him, a rupee to gauge your weight. A human hoping to earn enough using just a weight balance.

“Business in Motion”- Public transport constitutes a potentially large customer base indeed and it sure is exploited! Be it “poni na pouch”, (with a nasal tinge) “chaai chaai”, “ssiiinnnggg”, wafer-biskoot or “coldddrinksshh” the Indian commuter has everything at his disposal! And quite literally so as the respective sellers, perfectly coherent with the bus/train, artfully dodge the officials and sell the indigenous goods to the commuters at inflated prices right in the moving bus/train... Take a bow!!

“Where sharks find solitude”- There’s one avenue far more lucrative than a buy and sell business and that’s opportunism… Exploiting opportunities and everything that’s vulnerable to exploitation (read government services) is a high risk (at least it’s supposed to be) but a better paying job… The RTO is an ideal example; it has given refuge to countless gutkha- eating agents, who in turn even employ padiki- eating men as assistants to serve their large customer base that increases by the day. Likewise, wily consultants and agents have assumed autonomy over myriad fields of real estate, property, passport, visas, foreign education, finances… Just name it and there’s a smiling agent at your service to cruise you through what otherwise would have been quite a cumbersome task.

Truly, India is the one place on earth where you‘ll get to witness people, millions of them, making a living out of the most atypical and bizarre businesses. The impoverished Indian is a quintessential entrepreneur… one who lives on a plain wisdom- “where there is a will, there’s a way and when there isn’t, make one”… and in this process, He doesn’t survive… He thrives.