Monday, February 26, 2007

Omens

I was in Bhubaneshwar for some meetings, and was trying to gauge if the state would actually grow faster than it has in the past. Even though conspicuous consumption in the market, billboards displaying new projects, and construction activity gave soft evidence of growth, what REALLY convinced me was an article on the main page of the local newspaper.

The article essentially said that the morals of the youth in Bhubaneswar were on a rapid decline, these irresponsible people spent money on parties and pubs and (horror of horrors!!) on playing pool!! What was more, you could also see girls in restaurants with male friends!! The import of the article was essentially that humanity had been denigrated to the lowest levels because of these crimes of the youth :-)

I knew then that I was on to a good thing!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

On my recent to a small but growing town (amritsar), I noticed similar things... construction activity, lots of billboards and other print advertising in a haphazard manner, real estate project announcements (a la "get your dream home"). Maybe a good litmus test of signs of fast development is when too much seems to be happenening in a sorta brownian motion ? And of course, the media's reaction :)

Me

Alam said...

ha ha ha ...
whatever this tells about the state's future growth vis a vis past it does tell us that during your next visit to bhubaneshwar...calls made to you after 8 pm will be answered from a very lound room by a very drunk oaf (ok cut the oaf part...you take your drinks well..but i don't remember seeing you totally sloshed yet...so have to reserve my judgement)

bluesky said...

sahi deduction hai :)