Category Archives: india
Back Home, Reflecting on Yin and Yang
Home Again
There’s the yin and yang of life in India – and then there’s the yin and yang of life in India versus life in America.
I’m back home (read Southern US city) after much too long, having skipped my last planned trip due to a critical work project. It’s wonderful to be back! It smells heavenly. It looks heavenly – the beautiful, fresh green of spring again (although it feels more like summer) interspersed with fabulously blooming dogwoods. It feels and looks so clean and pristine – the air and the earth.
Forgive me the effusive praise…this is what happens when you are gone for too long.
I ended up skipping the entire winter here which, as mild as it was this season, would still have meant the use of a heavy jacket at times so that doesn’t make me that sorry. Instead, I enjoyed the mild, pleasant, unseasonably and unnaturally cool weather of Mumbai’s winter of 2011-12 where temperatures ranged from the 50s to the 70s.
I’m back for a short visit now.
Every day has been a catch up day, meeting with friends and work colleagues, sharing news, information and warmth. One night, I was at a friend’s house for dinner. Since it was a week night, we started and ended early – barely after 10 pm. I was driving back home and it really struck me then how different my two worlds really are. There was virtually no one on the roads! It was dead. At 10 pm! During Spring Break week, no less!
Where was even that hint of a cacophony of sounds that can overpower and overwhelm you in Mumbai? The honking car horns, the revving autorickshaw engines, the barking dogs…and people, people, people everywhere – it doesn’t matter if it’s midday or midnight.
And, wait a minute, was I actually missing that?!
I know that this is not a giant metropolis like Mumbai, but it’s not a tiny village either. It’s a nice-sized, right-sized Southern cosmopolitan city. Undoubtedly, this is quiet and peaceful compared to Bombay.
But listen to what someone who lives in the heart of Manhattan had to say of his recent trip to Mumbai – “It felt so quiet and peaceful in New York City immediately after I returned from Bombay”. Yep!
Other than feeling mighty wonderful about being back home for a bit, it was difficult not to notice some sea changes that are occurring in the US of A. The softness of the market is more than palpable – everybody is affected by it in one way or the other. The issue of the day: Jobs.
That usual American optimism is noticeably tempered, no matter who you talk to or what media you are reviewing. I wonder to myself, is this reversible? Yes, of course it is. This is part of the cycle that this country seems to go through every few decades…although most people’s memories don’t go back far enough to find a period as hard as this one has been.
And then, of course, there’s the upcoming election.
As Republicans converge on “quantum Romney” as their candidate of choice, it will be an interesting time leading up to the election – which I will be missing and watching from across continents…:-(
No prizes for guessing what I want the outcome to be!
And Home Again
Too soon, it will be time to return to Mumbai and India where I will once again get immersed in the unique atmosphere and environment that can only be found there.
The yin and the yang... never let it be said that I don’t recognize how fortunate I am to be living and experiencing both.
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Photos:
City Park View: By Richard Bitting [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Autorickshaws in Mumbai: Antônio Milena/Agência Brasil
Men and their Make-up
What’s Good for the Goose, Is Good for the Gander?
I was at a Sephora store in Las Vegas last year where I first glimpsed…up front and close-up…a man in street clothes wearing make-up during normal working hours.
Sure, movie stars, models and pretty much anyone who is being photographed for TV… you expect all of them to wear make-up and lots of it, men included.
But, at that Sephora store…one of the sales guys had all the make-up you would normally see on women. Since that is a cosmetics store, he was also being a brand ambassador of sorts. Okay, so that was the sales guy.
Then I noticed that there were quite a few guys shopping for make-up at the same store. These were normal looking guys (even for a city that is not Las Vegas).
And they were not loading up on your usual after-shave lotion or moisturizer. They had foundation and mascara in their little shopping baskets. I guess I was picking up on a new trend.
Well, not to be outdone, it appears that the Indian man is also into cosmetics now.
Is it just me or are you also amazed at the rate of travel of trends these days? They appear to move at the speed of light – crossing mountains, oceans, land and entire continents!
The Indian man is no more just a user of mundane soaps, (the occasional fairness cream!) and after-shave lotions.
At malls in large cities, high end stores with names like Men and boyS are beginning to appear. They sell products such as these:
Face washes, cleansers and scrubs, facial clay, lava and mineral mud masks, purifying and energizing masks, facial moisturisers, exfoliation scrubs, detoxifying exfoliating masks, anti-breakout gels, pore-reducing serums, pre-shave oils and guards, hot towel pre-shave treatment, electric pre-shave optimisers, shaving creams, foams and lathers, after-shave creams, soothers and moisturisers and after-shave balm, among others.
Back to the Future
Here’s what this store has to say about their line of cosmetics:
Historically, men’s grooming was prevalent in ancient civilizations. Men used oils, rouge, and kohl in their routine lives. In recent times, men’s cosmetics usage spread to a much wider population led by the metrosexuality phenomenon in the early 2000s.
And it goes on to say:
Our founder realized that cosmetics made for men were just not available in India and that most of the cosmetics giants just re-label women’s products as pour homme (for men). Thus, he went into further research and discovered that there were many companies around the world that make cosmetics especially for men’s skin.
Obviously we are growing a new generation of looks and grooming-conscious Indian men. This is not a bad thing to be happening.
There is solid evidence of this everywhere you look in India – in gyms, retail clothing stores, fashion ramps, movies, magazines and TV. Why not in the area of cosmetics? It was bound to happen sooner or later.
So, here then, is more uncharted territory that is just beginning to take shape in this emerging economy. Given the change in spending patterns and the growth of disposable income in a fast growing class of Indians, there is much to be shaped and created here.
And, if the West is the model to follow, soon I will spy that similarly made-up sales guy or male customer in a Mumbai Sephora store. Why not?
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 