WORLD - Bragging Rights of Wealth

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"India: Behind Mumbai's conspicuous consumption" by Hanna Ingber Win, GlobalPost 10/29/2010

Excerpt

In a city where the majority of people lives in slums, the world’s fourth-richest man has built a 27-floor house.

It is an act most global media outlets have touted as a symbol of India's robust economy on the upswing. News outlets have pointed to the dramatic increase in the number of billionaires (69) and a rapidly growing middle class. A McKinsey Global Institute report predicted that India’s 22 million middle-class urban households could increase to as many as 91 million in the next 20 years.

But inside India, the response has been more varied. Some news commentators have called Mukesh Ambani’s mansion, which cost $1 billion and is the most expensive in the world, distasteful and even vulgar.

From the average Mumbaikar, however, there has been very little resentment despite an awareness of the contrast between this one home’s splendor and the rampant poverty that surrounds it.

Rather than a slap in the face, many Mumbaikars say they are proud of Ambani's ostentatious display, which, at 570 feet, is complete with helipads, a swimming pool and home theater.

Taxi drivers point out the towering home with a sense of honor at what their city has produced, much the same way they point to the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, an attractive bridge that took 10 years to build and connects the western suburbs to Central Mumbai.

Indians do not tend to resent others’ wealth, said Samar Halarnkar, the editor-at-large of the Hindustan Times. In cities like Mumbai with a high level of upward mobility, people tend to see another’s success and rather than scorn it, admire it and strive to achieve it.

“Everyone thinks that they can get there as well,” Halarnkar said. “They might not actually get there, but there’s always hope.”

India’s young see this growth and these opportunities, and they believe that they can be a part of it.

“Definitely there is a feeling that there are opportunities here for anyone to seize,” said Rupa Subramanya Dehejia, an economist and writer based in Mumbai. She said she travels back and forth between North America and India and notices a significant difference between how the young see their future. In the United States and Canada, she said, she senses “doom and despair.” In India, the youth emit a sense of optimism.

“They think that they’re only going to go up,” she said of India’s young people.