Perspectives and perceptions

I’ve been born and brought up in Bombay, and I’ve celebrated a lot of birthdays... but the funny thing is that I only remember the gala celebrations from the last few years of my school! When i was 5 – 6, it was so simple, we just brought a cake from the local bakery shop, bought some back presents for all the kids, ate some good home-made snacks along with some local potato wafers in thin paper plates, played musical chairs, and then went home in time for dinner! How different from the scene today! It’s not just the spending that has gone up, the influence of brands, and products, on our day-to-day lives and on our occasional spending has changed drastically too. Today, even if we think of buying a cake from a local bakery, that bakery invariably turns out to be a Monginis, a Croissants or Ribbons & Balloons, the potato wafers are either Lays, or Uncle Chips, or whichever the latest entrant in the market is, the back presents have assumed enormous proportions and somewhere somehow...