The three sentence story

I have stood a silent spectator to a mass of people, who generation after generation have bungled through the centuries, bearing witness to all their Ecstasy, despair, riches, poverty even the private battles of those men and women whose great valor and spirit may never again be seen on this earth, always remaining a record defying even that swift tide of time.

But that swift tide moves on, memories are forgotten, friends disappear, 'legends' become 'tales', and one small slip from grace, they forget all loyalties, those whom I had guarded, come back with heavy ammunition and iron monsters with steel teeth.

It's tough being a historical building in India, first it is the graffiti, then it gets more colorful, then obscene and then the bulldozers step in.

Traditions become businesses

The social transformation from a rural economy to a more developed economy is happening and happening fast. Each progressing year, the share of agriculture drops and the share of the service sector increases. A traditional family in India was usually dependent on agriculture with all the siblings involved in working on the same farm. Some generations later, as the siblings grew, holdings were fragmented and the plot of land no longer helped sustain the entire family. The family size came down from the earlier 5-10 children per household to about 5 per household. Parents, grandparents, assorted aunts and uncles who had nowhere else to go formed the core of a family.

As life expectancy increased, education and transportation became easily available, the number of children began to reduce, children began to migrate to the cities. Thus Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Calcutta were the hotbeds of migration. Similar patterns were observed in other places.

Most of the migrants brought along their own culture into the city. Thus, housewives continued to prepare food much the same way they did back in their villages, swept the front of their houses the same way they did in their villages and so on. With an abundance of fruits and vegetables, most households were self sufficient in areas other than foodgrain. They prepared their own pickles, papads and other snacks. Even oil was often derived from their own lands. In the cities for over a generation, summer times were a replica of the way they lived in the villages. Families got together to prepare papads, pickles and so on. Sometimes they did it in the cities, sometimes they went back to their villages as one big family, worked out of the village and got it back to the cities.

Traditional festivals like Diwali, meant that lots of preparations (sweets, salted items) had to be prepared at home. To buy these from a store was infra dig once upon a time.

One generation later with sons and daughters equally educated, smaller families and no ties back in the villages most of these traditions became business opportunities for individuals with the talent and risk taking ability. Sweet shops were an industry long ago. The mixture of spices used for cooking was traditionally made at home, that is a big booming industry these days. Papads, pickles were the next target. To find someone who makes their own pickles is a rarity in the cities. Diwali preparations which require a considerable investment of time were "outsourced" so to say. The next assault was on traditional food stuff like dosa, idli which requires rice to be soaked and ground. Ready made batter is now available in most places in India. The summers which were available for enjoyment back in the villages are now "summer camps".

As the social transformation takes place in India where the society slowly moves from rural to semi rural to urban, a lot more such industries will be seen blooming. Can you spot the next one?