The age group of 18~34 accounts for about 55% of the total population in India and is increasing gradually. Among this group, the so-called elites 'Indo-Anglians' mainly reside in the Indira Nagar and Koramangala regions of Bengaluru and are different from the ordinary young Indian. They are; ① highly-educated, ② fluent in English, ③ not shy from spending money on what they want, and ④ very interested and accepting of other cultures. The top 1% (1.4 million) of young Indians lead the other 59% of the entire population. They are considered as the people who will lead the future of India and I believe that we can further understand the country through the lives of Indo-Anglians.

 I will share with you about their lives in six aspects – leisure, shopping, home, mobile phone, work, and cosmetics – that I have come to understand by interviewing these young Indians from various backgrounds and jobs, ranging from engineer, model, doctor, student, singer, and badminton player.

 What do Indo-Anglians do after work or during weekends and holidays? On weekdays, most Indians have dinner around 8:30 to 10:00. Those who work usually spend 200 Indian rupees or INR (equivalent to 3,200 Korean won or KRW) per person on average at a restaurant or enjoy hookah (600 INR) with a glass of beer (they prefer imported beer such as Corona or Budweiser), while students mostly have their meals at home. They also enjoy various activities on the weekends, such as bowling (285 INR per person, per game), playing pool, or enjoying cultural life such as going to the movies (600 INR per person for PVR Gold Class). They sometimes go to a nearby Central Mall for shopping.

 For those with jobs like model or singer, they spend more than 30,000 INR (or 500,000 KRW) a month on shopping, mostly buying clothes, skincare products and especially perfume. I also found out that they enjoy luxury leisure activities like camping. They are local Indians, but do not enjoy Indian-made beer such as BIRA or Kingfisher and prefer imported brands. Travelling is not easy for most young Indians as it is expensive, but the Indo-Anglians I interviewed told me they travel about twice a year to countries including the U.S., Korea and Europe. They are very interested in friends and cultivating relationships via social media sites (Instagram, Facebook) or messenger apps. Badminton player Misha said that she enjoys trying out different restaurants with her friends after a hard training or workout session. She is currently no longer a professional athlete and teaches children and adults. So, she has more time than when she was a player and enjoys hanging out with people and drinking coffee in her free time. She generously spends money at restaurants not really knowing or tracking her spending but does not spend money on things other than eating.

 During these interviews, I found that the one thing they have in common is that they enjoy being active and adventurous and show a tendency of challenging themselves as they value investing in new things (culture, people, language) and new experiences. Also, they use their leisure time wisely, clearly express what they want, and try to break away from existing traditions and customs. I also didn't see a sense of male chauvinism, conservative thinking, authoritative or individualistic tendencies as the women I interviewed had a higher social status than the average man. In fact, they were open, approachable, and friendly to a foreigner like me.

 Most of the time, students showed a high tendency of avoiding impulse buying and planned ahead when they go shopping as they do not have a fixed income. I went shopping with them and observed that they only visit the stores they planned to and quickly changed their course to going to a restaurant on the top floor of the shopping mall or to the next destination. They also mentioned that they mostly use e-commerce channels including Amazon, Flipkart, or Myntra because of the distance between the shopping malls and their home. But they said it was inconvenient as it usually takes 7 to 10 days for delivery. Still, these channels offer significant discounts (30~50%) and additional promotional gifts, attracting them to use such sites for shopping.

 The behavior of those who earned a living were completely different. Namrata Nayak (aged 26), who has been working at her company for 4 years after studying engineering, followed a 7:3 rule. 70% spending and 30% saving. She was a completely different kind of woman I met in India after living there for 3 months. She spends most of her money on clothes, shoes and bags and said that she buys makeup and household items twice a month for around 7,000 INR. She very much enjoys Korean dramas and wants to find and buy items the actors and actresses use. Her spending is quite large relative to the average Indian, but she also complained about the traditional thinking of her parent's generation. She said that spending money on herself was not a waste but an investment. Meeting her was a good opportunity for me in changing my perspective on Indians.

 Fundamentally, however, young Indian people hold values of frugality and prudence and sometimes give up the things they want for something bigger. Therefore, generally there is a tendency of preparing for the future by saving money, but the people I met showed slightly different behaviors.

 I visited the homes of three of my friends and saw how they lived. Prateesha is from a rich family as her father owns the building she lives in. She uses the second and third floors of the building and rents out the rest. Nami is from East India, married her husband Satajit (aged 29) three years ago and moved to Bengaluru. The couple faces a similar reality to Korean couples. Both earn enough by working in the IT industry but pay rent equivalent to about 220,000 KRW a month and were hesitant to buy their house because of the price (80million KRW to purchase). But there were suitcases lying in one corner of the room and she said, "we are preparing to go on a vacation whenever we can." It was a moment for me to look back on my life, as I saw these similarities and slight differences compared to young Koreans. Ajay (Vaishya) and his wife Pallavie (Kshatriya) bought their house located in an affluent neighborhood, much like Gangnam in Korea, and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle of inviting friends over for parties and travelling.

 There are a few common characteristics found in the homes in Bengaluru; ① All homes have a prayer room called 'Mandir'. There is a room for worship whether it is Hinduism, Buddhism, or Muslim and I am told they pray every morning or night. The Mandir is decorated with various figures of gods, books and flowers, and most of them are Hindu. ② The Rangoli pattern in front of the door. You would notice a pattern similar to a flower in front of doors if you walked the streets of India. This is a South Indian traditional culture of drawing a symmetrical pattern using rice flour. The Rangoli wishes for the well-being or peace in the home or symbolizes welcoming Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth into the home. Only a young woman can draw the Rangoli pattern. ③ There are not a lot of cosmetic products or houseware products. Although they are a generation that spends more money, makeup and houseware products that I found in their homes were simply eyeliners, toners, shampoo, conditioner and lipstick. It was difficult to find different types of makeup products, and the family or friends share the same item regardless of skin types or skin concerns. Their home appliances were mostly Korean brands, including LG and Samsung, and they have a positive view on Korean products, but their awareness on cosmetics were comparatively low.

 Currently, Bengaluru is going through a property boom. Property prices surged compared to five years ago. Therefore, many of the people living Bengaluru grew to become upper-middle class with a certain level of spending power. One of the factors for the property prices going up is an inflow of IT companies. In fact, there are several construction projects underway for high-rise buildings near the airport and districts like Karle Center. People have not all moved into the recently-built apartment buildings where the average monthly rent is very expensive, at equivalent to 1.2million KRW, but there are signs of a continuing inflow of residents.

 Much like Korea, I saw many young Indians carrying and using mobile phones. They mostly use their phones to talk to their friends using WhatsApp (Messenger) and share good restaurants, their travels and likes (K-POP, pet, shopping, etc.) via Instagram or Facebook. I saw that they had Amazon and Flipkart apps for shopping, while Nykka, who is more interested in beauty products, didn't have these apps and said she used her computer instead. Chennai singer Chinmayi (who uses Sulwhasoo) posts her videos of visiting Korea or introducing cosmetics products via Instagram and is preparing for her business by posting how-to-apply-makeup videos and videos of her performances on YouTube. She visited Korea for a week during the first week of June and went shopping for various makeup products, including Sulwhasoo and global luxury brands (clothes, shoes, bags). I remember she broadcasted her shopping experience live on Instagram. Unlike Indo-Anglians, most people turn their phones off or shut their data down in the evening to save data usage or battery. The mobile phones are mostly China's Mi, Vivo, Oppo or iPhone and Samsung, but some use Mi, Vivo, Oppo not knowing they are Chinese brands.

 Indo-Anglians mostly get their information online or via mobile devices rather than the channels of the past, such as TV or newspaper. Celebrities, Bollywood stars and beauty bloggers also use social media sites to share their lives with others. In fact, The Face Shop provides its products for free to power bloggers through Nykka and promote its products through their blogs. Therefore, we should focus on such content industry (YouTube or social media). I believe that developing various content on introducing Korean brands, information on how to use products and their effects and benefits can greatly help Amorepacific enter the Indian market.

 Bengaluru is a Silicon Valley with more than 900 IT companies in the area. Therefore, most of the residents are from BBC who studied engineering and they are considered successful along with doctors and lawyers. Those who have engineering jobs earn comparatively well at around 20,000~80,000 INR, varying according to position, and they work from Monday to Saturday. (Global companies don't work on both Saturdays and Sundays). When students graduate from school after Grade 12 and go to university, those in top of their classes usually choose to study engineering or go to medical school. This choice is highly-influenced by their parents. The people I interviewed who works at SAP continued to invest in themselves by taking additional classes for better options or conditions (pay, welfare, promotion, etc.) than their current jobs. Some also want to work at Korean companies and so they study Korean and watch Korean TV dramas every day. Students don't earn an income because they don't work but live off their allowance from their parents. Depending on their major, they study abroad in the U.S. or the UK for 2 to 5 years.

 India's local companies are good too, but Indo-Anglians wish to work at foreign companies with more people in a flexible culture and have the opportunity to branch out to other countries rather than staying in one place. Nishrnetha, who is a model, gets 10,000 INR a month as allowance, but also uses her father's credit card. She says she spends double or triple the amount of her allowance every month on perfume and clothes. It was very surprising to see that they spend more when they need to or want to, although most of the time they plan their spending.

 Walking the streets of Bengaluru, I found that there weren't a lot of needs for cosmetics among Indian women and there weren't many with makeup. It turns out that many do not use cosmetics and have no need for them yet because of India's environment (hot weather), skin concerns (skin issues and feeling stuffy after applying makeup), and not enough access to information on applying makeup. In special occasions such as weddings, parties or going out to restaurants and pubs, women do apply makeup. But even then, all they apply is eyeliner or kajal eyeliner (eye and partial makeup) and lipstick. Most of the time, they don't apply thicker makeup such as using foundation or drawing eyebrows. Women are more interested in skincare (especially acne and whitening) rather than makeup and find information via social media sites or the Internet. But they buy the products at Health & Glow (convenient accessibility) or e-commerce channels (for convenience).

 According to a survey (on 130 respondents), most students in the age group of 16~25 purchase makeup products once a month and around 700~1,200 INR. They preferred 'buy 1 get 1 free' promotions among different types of promotions and wanted to get different types of products rather than the same one for free. One interesting thing I noticed was that my assumption of students being sensitive to prices was wrong. I thought that the prices of the products would be a core factor in choosing a product. But it turns out that they choose based on quality and brand. They also can easily access information via online and so they know what products are out there but can't use them because they are not available. Students showed active interest in makeup by getting samples and reviewing the samples on their social media channels. I remember them asking questions about where they would be able to buy certain products. Also, unlike Korea's 10 step, India had a 3~5 step basic makeup routine (lotion – CC cream – eyeliner – mascara – lipstick). And the order in which they apply makeup was also different from that of Korea. I saw them surprised every time I explained the 'Korean way' of applying makeup.

 Women in the age group of 26~35 working at engineering companies spent around 10% of their income a month on buying makeup. The most common skin concerns were acne, hydration and exposure to sunlight. Many of the women I interviewed commented that even if they have certain skin concerns, there aren't products that can resolve them in Bengaluru and that they needed new products to choose from. Women in this age group also mentioned that they choose a product based on the brand and would be willing to buy a product without discounts if they are given a sample. Most of them did not know of Korean brands or any famous global brands except for MAC and L'Oréal.

 Overall, Bengaluru women's use of makeup and awareness of Korean brands were low, but it was clear that they wanted products of a better quality than the ones that are currently available to them. They also don't know much about how to use the products, which is one of the reasons why they don't feel the need for makeup. This would be one of the first issues to solve.

 Most of the people living in Bengaluru come from different regions; ① to seek a decent environment to live in after achieving a certain level of success in their lives, ② to find jobs at better IT companies, or ③ to study in the area or industry they want. Therefore, they have different backgrounds but most of them are open to other cultures and their living standards are higher than other cities in India.

 Of course, India's craze for education is as high as that of Korea's. Many young Indians do not take breaks and study hard and work hard to find better jobs. Also, improving oneself and studying is a way of overcoming the limitations of the caste system, although they say it no longer exists it still has an impact on its society. So, I imagine that the people I interviewed must have achieved what they have by making amazing efforts. Maybe because they worked so hard and went through their journey of a struggle to move up in the society to get to where they are, they wish to move away from the old customs of society and freely express what they want and think.

 India is a country of 29 states, 22 official languages, and 7 religions. And even within India, with all its diversity, Bengaluru is a planned city inclusive of new culture, people and language. I plan to visit Kolkata (eastern India) next to study the young people of the city. It may prove to be slightly difficult to compare the young Indians living in Bengaluru and Kolkata, which are both among the top 5 cities of India, in such a short period of time. But I believe that there are new insights to be learned.

 This concludes my "Edition No. 3. Indo-Anglians, the New Caste - Meet the Young Indians". Thank you for reading this article to the end.