In his CII AGM address, ‘Inclusive Growth: Challenges for Corporate India,’ Singh quoted John Maynard Keynes from his 1925 work, The Economic Consequences of Peace: ‘If the [19th c. European] rich had spent their new wealth on their own enjoyments, the world would long ago have found such a regime intolerable… [they] were allowed to call the best part of the cake theirs and were theoretically free to consume it, on the tacit underlying condition that they consumed very little of it in practice.’
Singh added, ‘The time has come for the better off sections of our society – not just in organised industry but in all walks of life… to eschew conspicuous consumption; to save more and waste less; to care for those who are less privileged and less well off; to be role models of probity, moderation, and charity.’ This, just when I had started to afford to spend on things I had wanted to splurge on: eating and drinking out, books, CDs, DVDs… I don’t care much for the first one these days, and music and movies that I gorge on cost a fraction they did before streaming.
But Singh and fellow Gandhian capitalists were unaware of a more powerful phenomenon that liberalisation had unleashed: frugal flamboyance – behaving rich without being so.
Traditionally, India has practised the cult of austerity. To make your wealth too visible was seen as vulgar, something you followed in celebrity media coverage with the same mix of titillation and disapproval that one has when tracking pornography with equal spoons of interest and guilt. Living below your means was admired, even lauded in ‘simple’ billionaires like Narayana and Sudha Murthy. Vijaya Mallyas were living proof of hedonistic hubris. We still want to be a global power without giving up our ‘developing country’ coupons.
Frugal flamboyance upturned this sanctimonious virtue signalling. Frugality and austerity are kicking cousins. Frugal buys the whisky it can afford, then pours it into a decanter to make it give Yamazaki 55 Year Old vibes. Austere, on the other hand, is the killjoy who lectures you about dangers of drinking.
Frugal flamboyance is about being rich on a budget. That one pair of Doc Martens I bought as swag-gear (I have three other shoes), to be worn with my only (Hidesign) leather jacket, provides way more bang for the buck than if I had somehow scrounged to have hand-burnished Ralph Lauren leather boots and a D&G zip-up leather jacket. This is economics of optics, spending just enough to look like you could spend much more, but are too discerning to bother. All along, I’ve actually gone along with Manmohan Singh’s plea to keep consumption down – just not inconspicuously.
Why be a tycoon (apart from not being able to be one) burning cash on gold-plated bathroom fixtures, when you can be the aristocratic professional who knows that a well-placed potted plant and a fine Raza print above your commode raises your value as much, if not more. The key, really, is maximised happiness with calibrated expenditure.
In Kafka’s 1922 story, ‘A Hunger Artist,’ a man inside a cage ‘performs’ fasting Anna Hazare-style to paying spectators, who are amazed by his ability to go without food for 40 days. Towards the end of the story (and his life), he confesses to his supervisor that he fasted only to be admired, adding that he actually shouldn’t have been admired. His explanation holds the key for us frugal flamboyants: ‘[I fasted] because I couldn’t find food which I enjoyed. If I had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart’s content, like you and everyone else.’
Thanks to Manmohan Singh, we are luckier than the Hunger Artist. We have no need to fast and make a show of it.