Entrepreneurial India

The people of India have an entrepreneurial spirit.  

In previous trips I've made to India, first in the early 1980's to Mumbai, and then in 2011to Chennai, I've seen an emergence of a technology-driven middle class economy.  Many places in the Indian mainland have a thriving middle class of talented software engineers, and an emerging industrial base (e.g., Tata Motors).  This was something I didn't see at all in my earlier trip to India, where I remember opulence of hotels in downtown aside beggars and poverty, and outside the city a poor agrarian setting.

In this trip, I have seen very little poverty.  I see an economy that is, as far as I can tell, thriving.  There is a clear division between the poor and the rich, between the traditional and the new, strongly western-influenced, dross of culture.  Back in america, when you go into an Indian restaurant, you are almost always in a setting made to feel as authentically Indian as possible, from the art of the walls to the background music.  Here in India, restaurants try to be as western as possible.  Corrina and I were in a restaurant in downtown Gangtok yesterday ("Bakers Cafe") and we heard a stream of top 40 American pop tunes, and all the posters on the wall looked like they were pulled from a poster shop in a strip mall in suburban Boston.

But I digress.  The point for this blog posting is the entrepreneurial spirit you see throughout much of India, and very strongly here in Gangtok.  Here in Gangtok, as you walk through the "suburban" outskirts of the city, in what are otherwise completely residential areas, you can't go for more than a couple houses before seeing a small business, run from a hut in someone's front yard...

… or from the bottom floor of their house.  Most of these shops are what are locally called "tuck" shops -- places where you buy "tuck".  Tuck is a slang term for a snack or other tidbit of food.  In the pictures above and below, you can see strings of small bags of chips hanging from the ceiling, and counters adorned with gum and candy.  Often, you'll see no one tending the shop, as they are likely tending to duties around the house, playing with their kids, or lounging on a comfy bench behind the counter.

Around the corner and up the road from Chandmari house, is a monastery -- the Enchey Monastary (pronounced "Inch-ay").  Right next to the entrance to the monastery is a blue house with a tuck shop in the ground floor.  Below you'll see a picture, complete with a buddhist monk acting ask proprietor.  Like I said -- entrepreneurial spirit.

Some folks aren't satisfied with having _just_ a tuck shop in their basement.  Here you can see the Sumpurna Bar & Restaurant run from the ground-floor of a home.  Not to lose out on any potential business, to the right of the entrance to this fine dining establishment is, you guessed it, another tuck shop.

Not all the local entrepreneurial spirit is manifest as tuck shops.  Across the street from Chandmari house is a hair salon ("Professional Salon with Cosmo Treatment for skin & Hair" in case you can't read the sign)...

…and a hole-in-the-wall liquor store, where 22-oz beers cost 50 rupees and 750-ml of "special" local whisky can be purchased for 175 rupees (that's about $3.50).