Mother Pious Lady

I have always believed that India has had two landmark events that continues to impact where we are headed as a nation. Political independence happened in 1947 and then economic independence happened - at least for the middle class in 1991 when India took the big bold step towards liberalization. I think we had to achieve political independence to make way for economic independence. I believe that political and economic freedom will clear the way for India to build an inclusive society that will help us to say that we have achieved social freedom as well. There are many ways to understand a society. When societal shifts take place, they show up in many places because the expected traditional behavior gets replaced or gets reflected in a new idiom. While some things change, at least at the surface, they tend to show up in mysterious ways. You need a sharp eye to observe these, decode them and then hold up a mirror so that others understand it too. Santosh Desai's book Mother Pious Lady tends to offer these priceless nuggets of insight about contemporary India by leveraging the insights that he has of Indian consumers thanks to his years of experience in advertising. Add to it his insightful, entertaining and pungent style of writing. Mother Pious Lady is all that.Santosh talks about advertising often (See this video) and is a popular choice as a speaker in in advertising forums in India and abroad. It is difficult to describe India and Indians in short snapshots. Here is an ad I found to be insightful and hilarious.Mother Pious Lady is a lot like that ad you just saw. It has loads of short essays that take up different elements of everyday India. If you are intrigued about what the title means, it is from a matrimonial ad that Santosh came across once :) Matrimonials are a great insight into a society. For a society obsessed with fair skin (Just look at the number of skin lightening products in India starting from Fair & Lovely by Unilever), it is not surprising to see that showing up in ads.  "Wheatish complexion, slim and homely, KKB, non Manglik, 5'3", father very high govt official, mother pious lady, brother MBA with handsome salary seeks respectable marriage" is a complex code that can be understood only by an Indian. Here is Russel Peters (a stand up Canadian comedian who is of Indian origin) describing his take on arranged marriages. Or this ad for that matter...Why during any event, are hordes of volunteers wearing large badges made of ribbon running around barking orders looking very busy? Why will someone when caught jumping a traffic light yell back at the cop, "Do you know who I am??". Why is squeezing the last drop out of any bargain so intrinsically coded in our genes? Why do stainless steel utensils matter to us? Insights on food, music, Bollywood etc all find place in this book. Are all the essays equally insightful and entertaining - ummm no. But then that should not be expected in a book which has almost a 100 essays and peeks into a psyche as complex as India's.The language is witty. The symbols get decoded and little by little things that have always made sense only to Indians gets to make sense. I loved the book. To understand what economic freedom does to a society, look at how it has affected consumer behavior and then get an ad guru to describe it in an interesting manner. Mother Pious Lady does just that.---------------Did you find the review helpful?You will find similar ideas in Pavan Varma's book Being Indian. Read my review here