Does the economy look okay?

When you look around yourself do you get the sense that you live in a BRIC economy that is attracting all the capital in the world and where people are enthralled at the prospect of many years of growth or do you feel a sense of despondency around you? You really can't tell, can you? The mega scams of the last few years, the cynical electoral deals that the political parties make, and the recent near collapse of the rupee-things don't look do good, do they?

Yet the good times too don't end either. Car makers keep on announcing new models. People are still buying their second or third homes. Eating out has not diminished, and despite the hike in air-fares, people are  travelling more than before. At the same time we all do find the going tough in our jobs and our businesses. Orders come after a struggle, every penny is fought over. Clients cancel or renegotiate contracts and the payments take their time in coming in.

Fuel prices do a yo-yo dance, food inflation has been high for far too long now with things like fruits priced almost beyond the range of the common man. The Indian middle and upper middle classes are holding on to their recently acquired affluence(tennis clubs and swimming pools in gated housing community projects) by somehow hanging in there. The poor and the underprivileged (as also the lower middle class) must be growing through harrowing times in an era when inflation is highest with respect to food items.

While in many sectors like housing and infrastructure there is a noticeable slowdown one sees a veritable explosion in the health and education sectors, with international tie-ups, bench-marks and affiliations being bandied about with gay abandon by every trader and builder who has entered the fray- beware Ivy League, here come the best universities in the world. Viva Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Jalandhar and perhaps Meerut!

India is a young country in terms of its demographic profile.With a huge market like this where the majority of the people are in the earning age-group, everybody in the world wants a finger in the pie. Never mind things like the suitability of the products and services to the market. But all the same any investment and economic activity does create jobs and there is development no matter how lop-sided.

So how does the citizen of this country feel? Where Jaguar and Jugad(locally assembled auoto-motive contraptions), Lear jets and bullock-carts(still find them not far from any urban centres), call-centers and manual scavenging, computers and  medieval mind-sets all compete for attention. Does he feel that the economy is rocking? Or is he as clueless as you and I?