Touting Credit Cards in India, July 2004

The rapid growth of the private sector over the past decade has taken several forms (banks, automobiles, airlines, retail, real estate, etc), one of which is the proliferation of credit cards. Usually India is a land of scarcities (water, electricity, health care), but there is certainly no shortage of plastic money. In fact, it's a problem of plenty.

As with anywhere else in the world, the choices are unlimited as the players are innumerable: HDFC, Citibank, ABN Amro, American Express, State Bank of India, HSBC, Standard Chartered and ICICI to name a few.

As an example of the boom in credit card use, Visa International on Tuesday said its card sales volume in India grew by 80% to $3.2 billion for the first quarter of 2004m with retail sales volume rising by 61% to $569 million in the January-March.

With direct sales to the customer being used as the card providers' unique selling proposition, each company has an army of boys parked throughout New Delhi. They can be found perched just about everywhere. At market places these agents approach to say that buying their card could fetch huge shopping discounts.

At petrol stations they say the card allows its owner to fill up without surcharges, outside cinema halls movie discounts are offered, outside hospitals free life insurance is thrown in, at restaurants its pizza discounts, outside homes they offer anti-burglary devices, at five-star hotels its room discounts; some even hang around public toilets to catch relieved customers in a good mood.

There are personal innovations in their selling, too. For instance, outside hospitals they begin by quoting the Gita, or some other such religious text, to remind of the uncertainty of life and the need to plug it with the card. One can catch their polite whispers all the time. "Excuse me sir," they gently butt in. The tone is familiar. In Bangkok any visitor knows very quickly that such messages mean massage girls are on offer; here it is credit cards.

At one time the paan waala (betel sellers) could be found around every corner, now it is the credit card touts. And they stand out: they are always dressed like corporate executives, but a bit sweaty (they don't perform inside air-conditioned conference halls). They have become almost a cultural fact of life in Delhi, and other major centers.

Such is the array of choice that it sometimes becomes difficult to choose one brand over another. After a little research one discovers that the cards all offer similar credit ranges, give and take a few tie-ups. It also becomes apparent that the discounts are covered by the high rates of interest on the card. Over the past few years, millions of Indians have bought credit cards, which has also spawned an institution of burly men who try to track down the huge number of defaulters. As an example of similarity, most banks charge interest of 2.95% per annum; while international brands are lower: American Express charges 2.75%.

I wanted a credit card to replace the more risky debit cards I own, but I made a mistake. I gave my mobile number to five boys out in the sun, just to find out more details. The credit card companies are smart; for telemarketing they have employed young and sweet-sounding girls, who are difficult to refuse. The poor boys rough it out in the open passing on the telephone numbers they collect to their female counterparts functioning from better environs.

The girls are similar in their persistence, though. After a couple of calls, they acted more familiar. One beseeched every morning: "Sir, pleeease, pleeease, you have to buy our card." Another called a few moments later: "Sir, if you don't take my card I will not talk to you anymore." Three others also made it a point to call regularly to make similar difficult-to-refuse requests. Soon, I was on first name basis with the girls - Renu and Anu, to name a couple. My wife thought I was having a swinging time. It is not often that so many women treat one with so much importance. Some friends tell me that their wives even changed their views about them, thinking they must be sexy with so many girls calling - their spouses even started behaving better, they said.

The problem was I couldn't decide. The girls do matter, but how does one choose from products that do not differ - it is like trying to choose from five pairs of black identical trousers with five similar-sounding girls pleading with you to take theirs. Ideally, I should have taken all five, but I didn't require more than one card to begin with, and more than one annual fee.

Ideas occurred to me. One was that I should change my mobile number to avoid the girls as well as the plastic. But that would be escaping a situation and not solving my need for a credit card.
The second was akin to a swayamwar (marriage selection) wherein I meet the five girls one by one and eliminate them based on other criteria, as they all sounded similar. This, too, did not gel as I soon realized that that the ones who talk do not necessarily meet.

If there is a request for a meeting, it is again the guys out in the field who take over. I told one of the girls that I would like to meet her to solve my dilemma. She took my address and sent across one person from the army of boys. As per some unstated rule, the boys do the running around while the girls only talk on the phone. I did feel a little cheated.

The boy came on a bike, smelling like a distillery of sweat given the hours he spends on the road. He spoke by rote and recited the same paragraph again and again for every query. I asked him a different question but he gave me the same answer. Even tourist guides are better. He drank a lot of refrigerated water, asked me for my bank statement and whether I owned a car and a house. I signed at three spaces and he shook my hand and left, saying that the card would be on its way.

Soon, I was the owner of a new credit card, yet the other four girls continued to call. I had to bring my wife into the picture. Women have a way with each other. She simply asked them to stop calling and they did. "You aren't what I was beginning to think you were," my wife remarked.

Life is back to normal, except for a few behavioral changes in my wife and continuing calls from my current credit card provider that I should pick up an add-on card for her. Now that's risky. This one I have decided to handle on my own, be what may.

The Dhaba Experience, March 2004

In India there is every kind of restaurant anyone could ask for. McDonald's may have taken root and is spreading across the country, but nothing beats the dhaba experience.

Until recently, I lived at Chanakyapuri, which is the diplomatic area of New Delhi - the capital of India and the same locality in which US Ambassador to India Dr David Mulford and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee both reside.

Tucked a couple of kilometers away from this high-security area is a popular dhaba called the Rajinder da Dhaba, the da in the dhaba a derivation from the local dialect Punjabi, meaning that the dhaba belongs to Rajinder.

The dhaba is now run by Rajinder's two ample sons, their dimensions a result of the enormous amounts of free chicken curry they consumed during childhood, courtesy of their father's dhaba. Dhabas such as Rajinder number several thousands and can be found all over India, along the highways, in little crooks and crannies of big cities and metros, as they do not take up much space while giving good returns to the minimal investment.

Beat cops and municipal authorities have to be kept well oiled and happy by the owners, but they come cheap. Sometimes, even a meal a day suffices. Traditionally, dhabas are meant for tired truck drivers looking for a break from their long journeys, alongside highways.

They offer cheap food, music, an open-air television and a charpoy - a bed with a wooden structure knitted with jute strings - which is a tad uncomfortable but has the best ventilation given the summer temperatures and erratic power situation here.

Some of the popular dhabas along the highways also provide girls who sing, dance and offer more of which is illegal, but still a flourishing trade. However, over time dhabas have come to define a culture, centered on food - any aphrodisiac pales in comparison to this ultimate turn-on: a blob of leg in a bowl of curry and butter, tandoori rotis, a preparation of wheat resembling pancakes on a sheet of newspaper, onions sprinkled with pungent syrup and a liberal dose of Indian masala (spices) - everything that goes against the spirit of new-age health gurus.

The government of Punjab, one of the wealthier states of India, lists dhabas as an attraction worth a try by tourists, except that many a foreign visitor has gone away clutching his/her stomach, given the heavy dose of masala and mustard oil. But dhaba food can get no more Indian. Also, social barriers do not matter here.

The crowd at Chanakyapuri where I lived, despite backgrounds where hygiene is a very important consideration, were regulars at the Rajinder dhaba for years.

I took a friend. I don't form a general opinion based on a single episode, but my advice is that a dhaba is not the best place to bring a date. Seema found the atmosphere a bit overwhelming. She, if I may take the liberty, belonged to the classes - not the masses.

To begin with, a comment on the ambience of the Rajinder dhaba, which like most others includes buzzing flies, grime, lingering muscular dogs, an envelopment of fumes spewed by the traffic whizzing close by. The eating area is limited to a few rusted wrought-iron tables, fixed to the ground to prevent people hitting each other.

The rest is open sky and the charred interiors of the tandoor, a huge clay stove filled with charcoal to roast the meat or prepare the rotis. I grew up eating at dhabas, but Seema obviously had finer tastes. When we arrived at the Rajinder dhaba, everybody stared at her as they would if an alien had descended from a UFO.

There were a couple of sari-clad women present, perhaps wives of laborers from a construction site in the vicinity, but it is a tradition in the dhabas to stare at anything that arrives in a short skirt. It is allowed. A guy farted loudly, just after finishing his meal.

I heard her say "Oh god" under her breath. "Should we leave?" she asked. "Just taste the food, taste the food and see for yourself, forget about anything else," I insisted. The Rajinder dhaba, as during any other evening, was bustling with people of every hue.

So was the no-holds-barred passion of gorging chicken. Opel Astras and scooters, Cielos and motorcycles, truck drivers, bureaucrats and Indian diplomats who might have interacted with Mulford earlier in the evening, daily-wage laborers and businessmen, all jostled for the limited space to wend their way for their piece of chicken leg or breast at Rs25 (56 US cents) a plate, delivered in white earthen saucers, the price being the same for years despite double-digit inflation.

There are no etiquettes, it is an unlimited use of fingers and palms, no spoons, one is only expected to burp loudly, an act that draws the stray dogs who expect you to leave, depositing the remnants with them. Sleeves rolled, noses running, heads bent, fingers dipped in gravy, well-heeled gentlemen stood alongside others wearing almost nothing.

The burps formed a long spray of fog that hung in the air for a while as it was winter; some washed up at a running tap in a corner, others wiped their hands on their pants and left, to chauffeur-driven Cielos or the bus stop. We chose a relatively empty table. I could almost witness images of an upmarket restaurant passing through Seema's brain, even as her expression changed from bad to worse. I went off to fetch a plate of curry as she reluctantly agreed to take a couple of bites only.

From the short distance away, I watched a burly man built like a tank settle his plate next to her and proceed to devour his food feverishly. The chicken was scoured to the minimum, lips gnarled in every direction, the bones cracked open and marrow licked clean.

Even hungry hyenas in National Geographic in a drought couldn't be as intense as this guy. To add to her woes, the man was a sadist. He seemed a regular and guessed that the girl (it could be any girl) was in some discomfort. Observing her skirt, he embarked on a loud conversation, with nobody in particular but everybody around, who seemed to be familiar with his presence.

Laden with Hindi expletives that sound much more obscene than their English counterparts, he talked of a fight a couple of days back that engulfed the dhaba. It started from the serving area when someone from one group spilled on someone from another group.

Both the groups threw their curry at each other, scalding skins. "One person lost his eye," he said. Then the hangers-on and onlookers tried to intervene, which led to both the groups pouncing on everyone, using their fists, plates and car accessories as all the curry was splattered. The man pointed at the ground that still carried stains of the previous day - blood and curry. When I carried back the chicken, Seema told me she was about to faint before she almost did, clutching my arm, spilling curry on the ground and my pullover.

"Water, water!" I looked around, hoping for a few sips. Somebody brought a bucket of water and threatened to pour it on her, just as I pushed it away. It was cold. Seema's eyes opened wide for an instant, emanating one final cry of desperation before she seemed to pass out for good. I held her while a crowd gathered, forming a circle around us, some holding pieces of tandoori chicken, as if they were watching a film shoot in progress.

"Make her smell a shoe, a shoe," one of the laborer women insisted. A man in rags and equally dirty shoes threatened to take them off. "She will be fine," I stopped him. "Let's get out of here," she murmured. I was relieved that she spoke and tried to calm her by offering Wall's choc-in-a-box ice cream that someone handed me as I carried her to the car, like an injured player being taken off the soccer field. Inside, she brightened, to launch into a blistering tirade at my hopeless judgment of hanging around town.

She swore that she would never visit a dhaba again. I have never again been to a dhaba on a date, but rest assured I slip in time, however busy I might be, to grab hot and spicy chicken with rotis on a worn-out newspaper rag. It's divine.