What festival season? What celebrations?

"Indians are slowly making their way back to the office and witnessing a consumption revival in the country with spending intent shifting towards more discretionary items, according to a report by global consultancy and advisory firm Deloitte," Economic Times (ET). "Consumers are seen actively spending 12 percent on alcohol, 36 percent cable TV, 36 percent clothing/footwear, 33 percent electronics, 25 percent furnishings and 22 percent on restaurants," the report which is based on a survey said. "The festive season broadly refers to the months from September to January where festivals are celebrated in different parts of the country and this often becomes an occasion to make high-cost purchases. For certain categories like consumer electronics, up to 40% of annual sales can come from these few months and retailers load up on discounts and financing offers to lure in customers," Tamanna Inamdar. This year there will be fewer discounts as prices of smartphones and laptops have increased by 10-20%. Maruti Suzuki has increased prices of its cars three times this year already. "Consumers across India are not likely to return to pre-pandemic purchasing habits and routines anytime soon, as 2021has solidified the new way of doing things in professional environments and home lifestyles, says a new report," by "Euromonitor International," ET. "Resumption of business activity had registered a decline in September, said Nomura as its India Business Resumption Index dropped to 100.6 in the week ended September 19 from 101.4 in the week before," ET. To spend money people have to earn it first. Millions of delivery jobs are being created by e-commerce company Flipkart and food delivery company Zomato, but "These so-called jobs do not provide health insurance, nor pay for overtime, let alone allow you to take sick leave," wrote Ajit Ranade. "Since India has a large population below or near the poverty line, their vulnerability to an income shock (such as caused by illness in the family) is very high." "The fact is that most people want a stable job with a salary at the end of the month." 40% of farmers would give up farming if stable jobs were available. "More than 90% farmers during July 2018-June 2019 reported being engaged in crop cultivation, and for a majority of them, real incomes from it declined 1.3% per annum. This decline was experienced not by any particular class, but by all farmers from those with small marginal to medium and large farms," wrote Prof Himanshu. "Events after 2018-19 suggest that the situation would certainly have worsened on account of a rise in input costs driven by energy and fertilizer prices." Perhaps, exports will be the engine for economic growth. "August was the fifth straight month when India's goods exports exceeded $30 billion," wrote Arjun Srinivas. "In four of these five months in 2021, the change over the corresponding month of 2019 (the year preceding the pandemic) has exceeded 25%." Problem is that "Primary commodities -- essentially, goods available from cultivating raw materials without a manufacturing process -- are behind the current boost." Petroleum products have gained from a rise in oil prices, and, "Some of the other commodities that have registered the biggest increases over 2019 -- both in value and volume terms -- are ores, metals, cotton and sugar." In India, "Between inflation and unemployment, the two economic indicators conjoined theoretically by the Phillips curve, it is inflation that wields political power," wrote Mahesh Vyas. "In a country of over a billion adults, there are less than 80 million salaried jobs." Of the remaining 920 million,"More than half opt to not seek any work. The remaining are self-employed as farmers, daily wage labourers and entrepreneurs of all kinds." "In 2016-17, only 42.8 percent of the working age population was employed. This fell to 41.7 percent in 2017-18 and further to 40.2 percent in 2018-19, and then to 39.5 percent in 2019-20." Then came the virus. How will people celebrate festivals if they are not earning? Buy with what?