"Age of rented friends and baratis!"
Like you can rent an expensive MF Hussain painting or an Hermes bag, it seems now friends are the latest commodity to be sold. Everything is for rent if you can pay the price. You can rent a friend anytime and anywhere to go out with you for dinner, movies, golf and even shopping. They are "paid confidantes" who can walk in and out of your life as you please. They meet new people and share a drink, play a game of golf or dance and the rented guy makes money too. Go trekking with those who do not want to go solo and also do their shopping. It's unlikely you meet the same people as they usually come from outside the city.
Today you can rent an entire posh lifestyle. The variety of rental services available in today's fast-paced life is a good solution to the growing needs of individuals who have big aspirations but small wallets.
Not many can spend 60,000 on a bag, and so it is economical to spend Rs 600 for a day on a Fendi bag. You just need to click a photograph of your outfit, send it to them and they suggest which bag to rent for that day.
Renting a lifestyle can be a money-saver. It is a smart solution and a stop-gap arrangement. A painting of Rs 1 crore can earn a rental up to Rs 3 lakh a month. That's good investment for art rentals.
And, have you heard of baratis on hire? A lot of NRIs come to get married in India. They do not have relatives. People are busy, and so it's an easy solution to just hire wedding guests. Everyone wants a fairytale lifestyle. Even plants can be rented to give your house a green look. So, that's the reason working couples are renting plants. Gardeners are sent to look after them.
It will take time for some narrow-minded Indians to adjust to renting stuff as opposed to buying. However, purchasing something like a friendship comes with a warning isolation. But, on the whole, the 'rent anything' revolution may just make lifestyle choices simpler, cheaper, handier and easier!
"Let’s meet and talk"
Delhi high society and the wheeler-dealers are no longer on their phones. All of a sudden one does not see the same number of people who walked in hotel lobbies with their mobile phones on their ear. Ever since the Radia tapes were made public, the people who walk in the corridors of power have realized that it is better to meet and talk rather than be taped.
Fifty per cent of Delhiites believe that they are powerful and imagine that their phones are being taped. The officers who know and then leak information are now scared of talking to any journalist on phone. Delhi was a place as in every other capital in the world where most of the work was done on your mobile phones. And now it is always "let's meet and talk".
Journalists, bureaucrats and cooperate heads who were caught in this taping mess are still to be seen and heard everywhere. It does not seem to have made any difference to them.
This is not the first time that they are facing such embarrassing moments and those who are embarrassed; their holier than thou image is completely shattered. Not that meeting in person is safe nowadays. After all the equipment, especially the Israel-type cameras and taping system is so sophisticated and tiny that you never know what the other person may be taping or even video-recording.
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