Rajpal's Column

Who wants to be a Krorepathi?

Though there is a degree of debate that has been generated by the liberalization efforts of the Indian government, one thing at least is obvious. India is at a very interesting intersection in time.

Most Indians seem to have less time to think about traditionally important issues such as poverty or graft. It's a state of mind that cannot be maligned, because of the sense of change that has been engendered by the ongoing reforms here.

But what's interesting is the transition in the Indian psyche, and as far as this goes, Krorepathi is a program that essentially encapsulates the culture of this transition.

It is a program that occupies a daily prime time slot, which is aired on Star TV, anchored by Amitab Bachchan. His stellar quality, it is believed in these parts, is essentially the pivotal factor in the shows success. The program is in sum a trivia - quiz masquerading as a " test of general knowledge.''

But Krorepathi is also about crores of money (crore being a 10 million) , and that is the resonant factor in the program even though Bachchan's appeal is not to be discounted. Beamed from Bombay (Mumbai) which is the designated commercial hub of the nation, Krorepathi is in some ways a means of exporting the Bombayite culture to the rest of interested India.

Mumbai, hot and humid these October days, is also so cosmopolitan that Delhi the capital seems in contrast antediluvian. Essentially, the city can be arty-tarty, with emphasis on the latter, but throbs with irrepressible life and talent.

Where this talent and the nervous energy generated by Bombay's embrace of the unbridled market is headed, is still to be seen.

But, if one thing is certain, Bombay as a city doesn't care a whit. There is a sense of confidence here. It's such that even Sachin Tendulkar, playing his innings in Sharjah, is a distracting blip on the screen for people otherwise obsessed with life. (Tendulkar is Marati, a Bombayite to his fingertips.)

In Navi Bombay, where a "new city'' has come up on acquired land, a "counter-magnet'' is being created for the old island city (Bombay) which is bursting at it's seams. A 1500 or more unit housing complex has been built here, for instance, for "non resident Indians.'''

The non-resident Indians also incidentally occupy a fond spot in the psyche of the new Indian elite. Essentially this psyche is built on the twin notions that India is becoming a Information Technology superpower, and that the nations courtship of the market is irrevocable. Non resident Indians or those who are fondly referred to as "driving the IT industry in Silicon Valley'' are an essential component of this emerging state of mind.

But, in Bombay, there is also for the discerning, the palpable sense that there is at least a coterie which takes all this with a shrug of the shoulders and some trademark Bombayite irreverence. Penguin India for instance, still comes out with some puckish work by writers such a Rohington Misty which gives a sense of what Bombay was, and still very much is.

That sort of Bombay is "mischievous'' insouciant and will not knuckle down fast to any ephemeral fads. (And of ephemeral fads, Bombay is India's home.)

But, having said that, what's now happening in Bombay and therefore in the rest of India cannot be called a flirtation with a trend. Often, Bombayites get so carried away with the "transition'' that they couple Sri Lanka into it too. ("Sri Lanka is doing very well in IT'' , or " ….it's the same country, no?'') That's particularly representative of some forms of Indian amnesia that is peculiar to Indians who believe that everything melts into the big Indian melting pot of the free-market…… 

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