When you were in India in the last summer, according to you what changes in the economy were the most profound. What is your opinion about the overall standard of living?
The biggest change was the level of investments going on. Families that were traditional in their thinking had changed their mindset; they must invest in this wildly successful Real Estate market. Huge swings did not appear to worry the investors since they could see the future potential.
More than trade, India sees itself as a giant power house for manufacturing and software. Its English-based higher-education system is a large collection of resources that it feels it can offer the rest of the world – the opposite of our “outsourcing” frenzy. India wants more of that going on.
Are the Indian youth influenced by what the American youth are doing?
No change in this attitude at least among the middle and upper classes. They’ve always tried to copy the West. The difference is that the middle class is increasing by leaps and bounds, so more and more people want to do what the West does.
In the older days (about 20 years ago !!) families were used to living in their inherited homes until they were capable of tating an apartment on rent. Thereafter most of them stayed in apartments until they had saved enough to buy an apartment. This was normally when they were in their 50s or older. An employee of Citibank, assesses people’s ability to pay on a loan and is himself thinking of buying his first home with a mortgage. He is about 30. The “American dream” will soon be the “Indian dream.”
Real estate is going wild in the big cities. Homes (apartments – or flats, as they are known) double in value in a year or two, and, they’re not cheap. Housing in Mumbai can run into the $1M range for an ordinary flat.
