India Insight

When I arrived in India some years back as a single mother and full-time journalist, there was one thing I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about – finding domestic help.

Maids, nannies, drivers, cooks and cleaners are ten-a-penny amongst the urban middle classes here.

In New Delhi’s neighbourhoods, for example, most families employ full- or part-time help, who do everything from feeding and bathing babies and cooking family meals to sweeping and washing floors.

These are often young, uneducated women from impoverished villages hundreds of miles away, trying to earn money to support their families back home.

So when a friend handed me the phone number of a placement agency which would help me find a live-in nanny, I didn’t think twice.

For nearly two decades, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the darling of the Indian middle classes, who saw the Oxford- and Cambridge-trained economist as a rare alternative to the stereotype of the uneducated, corrupt and criminal politician.

That love affair had begun to fray at the edges of late, after Singh’s perceived inaction over several corruption scandals that had emerged in his second term as premier, but now, it may finally be over.

As thousands of mostly middle-class Indians across the country demonstrated in support of veteran social activist Anna Hazare’s hunger strike against corruption, the anti-government and anti-Singh mood was very much palpable.

After the iconic Bajaj scooter,  another symbol of the eighties and the then acme of middle-class ambition — the Maruti 800 — is driving into history.

With new emission norms kicking in, it won’t be sold in 13 major cities.

Nearly three decades ago, this delicate looking car in various hues begged for space on Indian roads next to ageing off-white rivals whose stolidity was misinterpreted as dependability and ruggedness.

The car entered my life only as a toy model as we were only aspiring 800-buyers but that didn’t beat its influence.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have set the ball rolling for granting voting rights to Non Resident Indians.

“I recognise the legitimate desire of Indians living abroad to exercise their franchise and to have a say in who governs India,” Singh said at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meet in New Delhi.

According to reports, the law ministry is working on amending the Representation of the People Act to include those living overseas as citizens.

I was stuck in a traffic jam on one of New Delhi’s busiest roads, taking in the sights and smells of vehicles idling in all directions, when my cab driver turned to me and asked — “Are you going to buy the Tata Nano?”

It’s a question thrown at me several times over the past few months and each time the answer has been “No”.

Tata Motors is launching the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, on March 23. Bookings open in the second week of April and the 100,000-rupee car is slated to hit Indian roads before July.

Fed by a sensation-hungry media, India’s politicians got another chance to flex their nationalist muscles and bash the United States over the weekend.

The object of their ire was none other than George W. Bush, who was reported as having blamed India for rising global food prices.

“A cruel joke,” said Defence Minister A.K. Antony. The United States appeared to believe “the rest of the world should starve”, the CPM was reported as having said.