A Happy New Year to all our readers! The year went by in a whirlwind, and on the final day of the year, I couldn’t help but shy away from all parties — and spent it in the quiet, warm embrace of home and family. What’s striking, though, is that this was in stark contrast to my memories of childhood — especially at the turn of the millennium.
As we welcomed Y2K, India was still in the early annals of a liberalised capital economy. As a result, dressing up and driving off to a formal New Year’s party at a five-star hotel’s swanky club was not quite the norm.
Instead, in the chilly, foggy winter of a sleepy Dehradun, my clan bid goodbye to the 1900s at a friend’s back yard.
Today, though, I suspect there’s greater joy in that than the myriad commercialised “New Year’s bash” parties that are planned aplenty by hotels, resorts, bars and restaurants. Back then, there were obvious structures to how we would celebrate — men in charge of an assorted barbecue and a self-serve bar where the choicest single-malt whiskey had been reserved for the revelries.
Women would set up their own corner of beverages while overlooking a potluck setup of a ‘continental’ dinner. For us kids, there was joy in a card game that we were told was out of bounds, or a round of ‘planchette’ (none of us ever knew that the word actually meant a French-origin automatic writing board) where everyone swore upon knowing someone who would had a bone-chilling supernatural encounter. If you had reached teenage, you would have been privileged enough to get unsupervised television and magazine access.
Today, 25 years have passed since the above description matched the New Year’s parties for urbanising and aspirational middle-class India. As we travelled widely and our disposable earnings grew, we aspired for the glorious parties in the West that were portrayed as the ‘best’ in the world. In, came the idea of fine dining restaurants with multi-course chef’s menus drawing in diners. The growing private corporate economy also meant that five-star hotels started welcoming clientele beyond business people and NRIs.
This, to be sure, was a far cry from the average small-town restaurant which back then had a near-fixed clientele and served the same food but with unerring consistency all year round. I realise that today, you would be hard-pushed to trace down loyalty in culinary circles.
In most cities, restaurants from large hospitality groups are opening doors more frequently than ever before. In this new race to capture the fancy of diners, each of these outlets is in constant strife to outdo each other. But, what we’re creating is a niche group of a few evergreen restaurants that enjoy a loyal following — Delhi’s Kwality and Mumbai’s Gallops. For the rest, holding on to their patrons is a tough act.
In fact, it’s not just restaurants that are today facing what for consumers is a problem of plenty. Many brands helmed by independent designers have opened up. But, only a few are truly reaping the rewards as buyers go dizzy with the number of choices at hand. You can argue, though, that a problem of plenty may not be a bad thing as it gives loads of options to revel in the New Year.
While it most certainly isn’t, what is noteworthy is that for millennials — the age bracket that today makes for a bulk of the middle class’ spending power, there’s joy in shunning all the choices at hand. For most urban millennials, house parties make for the best choice to accommodate everyone’s preferences. The party, as it seems, has come back to our own yards, despite so many choices at hand. That is not too different from 25 years ago after all, is it?
Vernika Awal is a food writer who is known for her research-based articles through her blog ‘Delectable Reveries’