Can we dare to exhale now that the Prez has left the Capital? After weeks of penetrating, investigative media reports undertaken with remarkable exuberance on what the US President will eat, see, sleep on, the two-day-old Clinton theme park in New Delhi has already caved in and run over by our humdrum existence. While the purists moaned about the media's obsession with trivia whatever happened to informative, analytical commentaries, they cried for the slavishly LA-NY wannabes, the media gave them a taste of what the real thing is. GKNY meets DKNY.For the GKNY (Greater Kailash, New York, the soul of Delhi's aspiring, global players waiting to leapfrog into the big league), US President Bill Clinton's visit was a double knock they got to see with their own eyes how the big boys work and play, at the same time, it showed up their own imitation lifestyles. Bill's visit certainly left them feeling slightly shabby. There is nothing flattering about being a secondhand, Third World, copy of the super rich and super powerful.The city's plucky men and spunky hunks got a blinding display of the ultimate American dream which was unfolded before their eyes `live.' Globalisation, which brought in lifestyle rules and lavish lifestyle newspaper supplements, have force fed us to believe what the ritzy life is all about. So, it was a devouring, urban class that greedily snatched every bit of trifling, worthless piece of info on the most powerful man in the world a DIY for the future.Spunky men swooned at the fact that the President was coming with an entourage that could fill 20 jumbo jets. It made their first class ticket on frequent miles look like a ticket to the local zoo. Air Force One (the official presidential carrier) was seen as some supersonic, Star Trek chariot (one reporter gushed the Titanic had landed). As for where to stay, forget crummy suites, book the entire hotel and the neighbouring one and also keep the local presidential palace on hold. Decide only at the last minute while your hosts wring their hands in suspenseful anxiety.Reporters who went into a frenzy about the President's suite in a five-star hotel which was overhauled for lakhs of rupees for ``a purely Buddhist feel,'' were randy for more as they churned out columns on the specially created pools of light, acqua bedcovers and antique cow bells which chimed soothingly. A far cry from your star-chain hotels in Manhattan, right?And how do you get a taste of the local cuisine? First, get the prevention of food adulteration analyst and food tasters to test your food weeks before the two lunches and dinners you may have so that those horrific, local bugs don't creep in but then, you can always fly in your favourite food turkey breasts can be turned into melting malai kebabs too. And what to wear in strange locales? Media movers even contemplated whether the President will wear shorts on his tiger safari in a well-known national park the persistent rumour got local authorities to pull out their casual gear. It would be embarrassing to be caught in gaudy, ethnic chic.Okay, so he is the President of the United States of America, and his lifestyle is something you can only dream of. But outsized aspirations can play funny tricks on you. Overnight, grown men were consumed by self-doubt and began to feel threatened and endangered. You do feel like an insignificant dot when you come face to face with big bucks, big guns and big power. Global participation is not about keeping up with slavish trends but creating individualistic styles that keep you firmly on the map.In the past, aspirants ached to imitate their own rich, today they are on a daily dose from MTV and Forbes magazine. Sure it makes perfect business sense navigating round the world on virtual superhighways trading in global venture capital and plotting dot-com mergers, but it is certainly de rigueur to make the other Bill, Microsoft's Bill Gates, your style hero. Would you like to drink your bubbly in a styrofoam glass? Think again.
