I’ve often visited India, accompanying CEOs of Western clients who want to understand the Indian market climate. In 1993, Victor Sherer, CEO of Grand Metropolitan Corporation, where I was engaged in a global project, had come with me to check out opportunities post India’s economic reforms. Accustomed to everything being linear in Europe, Sherer was fascinated by India’s haphazard, colourful ways. The bargaining practice thrilled him. When I warned that it was difficult to get hard discounts in the bonafide stores on his left, but very possible with the hawkers on his right, he was effusive: “Such vibrancy within just 10 metres!” Neither did he understand Kolkata Gariahat’s potholes, and invariably fell into them.

“Poor people wear colourful clothes to overshadow their poverty,” he said. His remark continued to intrigue me. It took almost 10 years for me to get the answer while working on a few projects that addressed very low income people. On my consumer interactions through home visits and roadside meetings, people said colour meant that some extra work has been done to make it worthwhile, even when the price was low. In the psyche of India’s masses, bright colour is the pay off.

In 1995, Jacques Vincent, the outstanding CEO who transformed Danone into a global dairy leader, asked me to help him evaluate business potential in India. Having worked to create and renovate 175 brands in the Danone portfolio throughout the world, I was eager to showcase my own country’s real picture. I arrived in advance to organise visits to urban and rural markets and consumer homes. Jacques met me at the Kolkata airport at 11 p.m., skimmed over the five-day agenda, and before going to his hotel, decided on his dinner--the Bengali food my mother had cooked at home. Then we went to Keoratala crematorium at 1 a.m. This prelude to his next day’s business schedule was to show him how life ends for eight million Indians who are cremated every year. The activities connected to death made a huge impact on a Catholic European, in whose community death is a silent ceremony. From electric incineration to the burning ghat, Jacques was experiencing reality. He exceeded the 30 minutes as per the plan by staying there up to 4.30 a.m. “Death also has an angle of festivity,” he commented.

... contd.