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We were in Champagne Valley, France, the objects of a hyper, brand-building assault by a leading champagne house.
The year was 2001, and the powers that be in the wine and champagne worlds of Europe had decided that India was going to be the next target of their produce.

So there we were, early one crisp morning, three journos sitting in an austere boardroom, being subjected to the rigours of champagne: its manufacture, mythology and drinking; the grapes, their picking, the terroir, the colour, the chilling, and the serving....

It was then that I said something that reduced by fellow hacks to giggles. “What if,” I whispered under my breath, “We Indians used a similar marketing technique to brand-build Samosas?

We could seize upon details of sourcing and manufacture and the fact that every region has a different version of the samosa; we could talk about the pastry, the hues, the texture... we could go on about the different ways of eating samosa: with chutney, dunked in tea, accompanied by jalebis...”

And the more the French experts on champagne droned on about theirproduct, the more non-serious we found ourselves becoming, when we thought how fatuous the whole exercise appeared, if applied to a million other products in an India that had still not learnt the tricks of extreme marketing from the developed world.

Today things are different. Crockery makers, perfumers, fashion houses, leather manufacturers, the makers of pens and scarves and luggage and yachts, are queuing up at our door, eyeing our wallets, babbling breathlessly about the unique, unrivalled andinimitable qualities of their products.

A three-generation family legacy is dusted out to sell cognac, a humble artisan’s rise becomes the mythology behind the marketing of a brand of crockery; each perfume is sold as though it is a work of art, a writing instrument is imbued with qualities that are normally associated with NASA objects.

Is India falling for all of this? And more important, in a country with a centuries-old tradition of art and craft what do terms like‘bespoke,’ ‘limited edition’ and ‘luxury’ really mean?
Take ‘limited edition’ for instance.

There are women I know, who get their saris woven for them from artisans, the progeny of many generations in the craft. These saris are truly one of a kind and as for limited edition — in most cases there are no other editions of the kind!

How about ‘bespoke’? That pretentious word for ‘made to order,’ invoked as the highest material extravagance by producers of luxury goods?How many of those young bankers queuing up to buy Rs one lakh suits, remember those historic moments accompanying their dads to venerable old tailors named Desouza and Karim? Tailors who would measure their fathers meticulously, call them back for innumerable fittings and then produce a wholly made to order, one of a kind suit and what’s more, who didn’t make a song and a dance about— never mind charge an arm and a leg for — the exclusivity and privilege of it of it all?

As for words like ‘luxury’, what meaning do they hold in a country where your jeweller comes home, studies your shaky drawing and returns a few weeks later, with a hand crafted, delicate, one of a kind necklace fit for a queen?

No sir, my take on all this is that even as we buy into the developed world’s values of what is great and good; let’s take the hype and the marketing with a pinch of salt.

They may have their champagne — but I am still optimistic that some day we will teach them the uniqueness, and the matchlessness — of a perfectly fried Samosa!
Email: s_malavika@dnaindia.net