Now that we have had a sip of shikanji, the sellers of which are doing booming business thanks to an insane summer, and each of whom is actually customising concoction mixes for loyalists, nobody is bothered about Coca Cola sales. The shikanji from Jain’s or Sharmaji’s has a far more intense recall than the homogeneous appeal of Coca Cola.
And though Rahul Gandhi wonders why India could not generate a shikanji chain like Coca Cola, mistaking the latter to be a lemonade than a patented chemical formula, we still love our neighbourhood vendor. No, we don’t want the Jains or Brijs to either lose their art, profits or be subsumed by a huge multinational buyout. Besides there is a wave of health consciousness and aversion to carbonated drinks that is forcing Coca Cola itself to switch over to healthier alternatives in its product bouquet. last heard on car sales, Maruti was still doing good business compared to Ford. And in Delhi/NCR at least Nirula’s had made an impact much before McDonald’s could.
As for the proverbial rags to riches story, the Indian story of enterprise is replete with examples. One hopes the research division of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s smart media cell had gone through history and known that the McDonald brothers were no dhabawallahs or that the brand marketing was done by a far-sighted salesman. Or that Ford and Merc founders were not just mechanics but engineers and visionaries in their own right. Indian enterprise doesn’t need lessons or templates. Ingenuity in business is somewhat encoded in our DNA enough to script original stories.