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 Given the ferment Indian society has been in since the eighties, the year gone by could be seen as one more installment in our continuing saga of transformation and resistance. And indeed it is. Except that with each passing year, despite the well-publicised protests against SEZs and other symbols of India’s makeover, the transformatory forces gain a lot more muscle. To that extent, 2007 in hindsight, may emerge as the landmark year when push came to shove and the new India of super-mega cityscapes and super incomes finally took off, rising and floating like a blimp above those left behind.

Woven into this larger pattern, however, are other stories that may well signify major shifts in life on the ground. The Nithari killings, for instance, which announced the emergence of the psychopath, a creature believed to breed more commonly in the loner culture of the developed West. The gunning down of Pramod Mahajan which may well become an increasingly common way of settling scores (Mumbai has seen at least two shoot-outs between family members in recent weeks followed by the Gurgaon shootings). Rakhi Sawant, a worthy successor to Mallika Sherawat, a force redefining social mores for women in conservative and small-town India.

In general, judging by newsmagazine covers, India was considered the big story domestically. What unites India, India at 60, the defining Indian experience, the magic of India — these were all perceived to be matters of fascination for Indian readers. Politics, meanwhile, slid down the popularity scale with issues of social significance outstripping it by far. By social significance one is, of course, not referring to ideas or debates such as those that would have been thrown up at the 31st Indian Social Science Congress in Mumbai last week but urban user-friendly trends regarding health, food fads and so on.

As far as the state of the media was concerned, sensationalism, trivialisation and the relevance of sting continued to dominate discussion apart from the government’s misguided attempts to constrain it. Ire has also been vented, for instance, on “advertising managers and self-styled media pundits who believe that the highest responsibility of the media is to give the reader or the viewer what he or she wants”. But this bellyaching may have come too late. It is unlikely, at any rate, to halt the media’s eager rush to please, if not the reader at least, the advertiser. Product-based editorial content has spread its footprints across media; the reader or viewer is perceived increasingly as a buyer and there is pretty much a global consensus now on consumerism as the new world religion. But beware, the mood in 2008 is about to shift to another level.

The consumer trends firm Trendwatching.com which at the beginning of last year talked of status emerging from a person’s ability to purchase the ‘coolest, the most expensive, the scarcest and the most popular goods’ predicts that in the new year, with the dominance of (physical) abundance, saturation, virtual worlds, individualism, feelings of guilt and concern about the side effects of unbridled consumption, status will be had in many more ways than leading a lifestyle centered on hoarding branded, luxury goods.

The new wave of status seekers will include some old style ones from emerging markets such as India and Russia which will continue to crave objects of conspicuous consumption. Others, however, will be divided into communities according to inclination. There could be those with transient lifestyles, for instance, online communities, eco lovers, do-it-yourself types and those for whom giving will be ‘the new taking’. Marketers are advised to follow new strategies while catering to these new consumers. In the latest issue of Spice from the India Today stable, the pricey bauble-maker Swarovsky shows the way with its new series for 2008-2010, entitled ‘Endangered Wildlife’; the first in line being a mother and baby panda in ‘faceted transparent and black diamond crystal’.

Other prophecies include the possibility that McDonald’s may be replacing bolted-down, yellow-and-white plastic furniture with lime green designer chairs and dark leather upholstery. And, control-craving consumers needing online access as much as they need oxygen.

The international advertising agency JWT has also prepared a list of ‘80 things to watch in 2008’. The list includes ‘Facebook Suicide’ (the decision to drop out of a social network), e-clutter, mobulimia (addiction to mobile devices), and the “third screen (as in mobile) rivaling the first screen (as in TV)”. The agency also predicts social network branded communities established by marketers such as, for instance, a sleep drug brand starting an anti-insomniac community. And yes, blue might just be the new green in the environmental movement’s colour scheme.

Foodnavigator.com claims that use of the word ‘spicy’ to describe new foods and beverages doubled between 2003 and 2006 and predicts the emergence of bold flavours in hitherto unexpected foods. And then there is my favourite new word: ‘Yumberry’. A subtropical fruit originally from China, with a high antioxidant content and cranberry-like flavour which is said to be creeping into shelves at world stores. So to the consumers of India in 2008: Happy new year. Choose well.

Mumbai-based Shah is the author of ‘Hype, Hypocrisy and Television in Urban India’

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