Patel vs. Patel vs. Patel vs. Patel vs. Patel vs. Patel

If you thought only the Indians in India were nuts, you need to read this post.

On July 19, 2001 Cricket umpire Roy Higgins turned up to umpire a game between Yorkshire LPS & Amarmilan club from Bradford. To his surprise, all 22 of the players on the pitch were named... Patel

BBC Sport has the story, but I'd like to quote from LPS club secretary Ishy Patel
"We didn't realise we all had the same name until the match was under way, but even then we didn't think it was anything special.

"We certainly didn't think it would become such a big story.

"Twice before we've played and there were 21 Patels lining up against each other, but on this occasion our regular wicketkeeper, who is not called Patel, had to go to London for work."

Spare a thought for the one non-Patel. No wonder he took off to London for work. The scorecard from that momentous game is here below:



But thats not the only Patel story in town:

BBC News last week has an article about a marriage mart in Wembley, where groups of British Patels can meet & date another...er.. Patel. There are 250,000 Patels in the UK, divided across half a dozen castes.

As the guests arrive they are handed lists relating first names (surnames are obviously a given at this do), ages, qualifications and occupations of their opposite numbers, together with the names of the villages their forefathers came from. One girl explained:

"You look for the village where your own folks come from. But you can't link up with someone who's from your own village because they'll be too close, like your cousin or your brother."

The mind boggles. It's approximately 6800km between Wembley and any village in Gujarat.

India, and the Taste for Conspicuous Consumption

There was a terrific article on Inconspicuous Consumption in the The Atlantic that got me thinking about certain consumption patterns in the Indian consumer

The article essentially states that as one's peer group becomes wealthier, consumption:
a. becomes more inconspicuous (ie. bathrooms vs. watches)
b. moves from products to services (ie. from fancy cars to fancy vacations)

Given that India, overall, is a very poor country that would imply a very strong tendency towards flashy consumption; and would also likely imply that consumption is centered around goods vs. services.

The match with reality: mobile phones sell like crazy in this country; currently 4 million a month and holding.

Luxury vacations meanwhile are only now picking up. For most Indians, vacations mean either visiting families or going on pilgrimages. For many urban Indians, vacations mean junkets to shopping destinations like New York, London, Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok.

Building businesses around upscale services may not be a bad planning strategy for the future. Which are the likely professions? Psychoanalyst? Personal shopper? Keep your eyes peeled for anything around you.