ICONIC INDIA

What most defines Indianness? The quintessential dhaba or the iconic seals from the Indus Valley Civiilisation, the Ganga or the Taj Mahal by the banks of the Yamuna, Nehru
jackets or Gandhi topis, the Lux beauty queen commercials or the revolutionary Nirma television ad? Team BS came together for som
me collective thinking but
ended up squabbling in Amartya Sen’s argumentative mode over the merits off their own and others’ inclusions. From among hundreds, we
edited down to the very few choices our pages could accommodate. As a result, several meritorious icons were dropped, leading to
heartbreaks and not a little unhappiness in the office. We are sure you will find your own reasons to be upset over our selection, but we
hope you agree that these final ones on our list are worthy icons of Indiaanness. Have a happy new year.

Per fectly designed

Charkha Almost the first lesson on Indian design will
point you to the lota, the small water pitcher
To Gandhi, mill cloth represented colonial rule or pot, made of brass, copper, silver or, now,
and the un-Indian domination of the village by steel. It’s existed for millennia, performs a
the city. Therefore, Gandhi and many of his number of functions, and with its perfect
followers spun their charkhas daily to turn raw contours and easy portability, is touted as the
most perfect example ever of form and
cotton into khadi — which became the
function. Beat that 21st century designers!
uniform of the post-Independence politician.
On the tiranga, the charkha of the Congress
flag was replaced by the dharma chakra.
Dance with me, baby
Uncommonly common
Long before there was middle-class activism, or Four-and-a-half thousand
alternate cinema, there was R K Laxman’s “common years back, the
man”, the dhoti-clad, slightly befuddled Indian The outsourcing mantra Mohenjodaro dancing girl
everyman, at the receiving end of our corrupt symbolised the epitome of
politicians and bureaucrats, stoic, long-suffering but Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) was an clean, minimal design in a
brightening up our day in a pocket cartoon that has economic reality that happened a decade back, civilisation that was at its
proved as habit forming as the morning cuppa. opening employment avenues for millions of peak. Scholars are still
young graduates. It has today evolved into a trying to understand what
sophisticated industry that generates revenues of led to the abandonment of
Calling Sher oo... around $12.5 billion (last year), employing slightly the Indus Valley settlements
— and why later Indians
over 700,000 employees. Despite battling a
…or Bhaloo, Maghu, Bhuriya, among the most gave up on austerity to
gloomy economic outlook, the Indian BPO industry
ubiquitous of names for that most ubiquitous of beings embrace the full-blown
is on track to reach $73-75 billion in revenues
— the Indian stray. Shunned by most, but fed by a few voluptuousness of
by 2010.
kind-hearted souls, the street dog across the country is Khajuraho.
resoundingly similar, often brushed aside as a mongrel,
but actually a pedigree that is uniquely its own.
An Indian monument

Dabbawalla & Co
The Mumbai dabbawallas have not only enthralled
Britain’s Prince Charles but also taught Sir Richard
Branson a thing or two about service with a smile.
Well-chronicled for their network and
trustworthiness and rated Six Sigma performance
for the precision of delivery by Forbes magazine,
the Dabbawalla Association’s error rate surpasses
the benchmark that blue-chip telecom and IT Writes photographer Raghubir Singh in A Way Into
companies have set for their products. India: “...It has become a metaphor for modern
India, for independent India. Lizard-like, it has shed
its colonial coating of Morris Oxford to don
W ah! Taj Hindustani colours. Unlike the Oxford don, tweed,
thick-cut marmalade and an English breakfast of
It’s the white elephant that wasn’t: the Taj has been called, with superb sentimentality, “a teardrop on the cheek of time”, a monument to love and so on. Many myths
surround its creation, such as that its architects and craftsmen had to forfeit their hands or eyes so as never to outdo themselves. Some iconic moments attend its kippers and herring, it was never a British
present, like the 1992 portrait of Diana alone in front of the Taj. It’s a huge tourist magnet, one of the so-called Seven Wonders of the World, the root of all the many monument but it is an Indian one.” No one
Taj-based brand names, and by far the most recognisable symbol of India. disagrees.