London resident and annual India visitor, Radha Seth Sarwal proudly watches her home country develop into a global powerhouse

David Beckham has his wife’s name tattooed on his forearm – in Hindi!

Everything Bollywood is chic.

India is the holiday destination.

Indian fashions bedeck high street shop windows and Indian writers vie for shelf space in bookstores.

A headline from a press release issued in the summer of 2003: ‘Learn how to dance, Bollywood style; the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum present the hottest dance craze around.’

I could go on and on and on…. Welcome to the New India. I have been out of India for the last ten years. In that time, I have lived in Singapore, Paris, Amsterdam and presently in London. The tables have turned – I look forward to my annual trip ‘back home’ with excitement, but tinged with some trepidation. With every visit I have found myself a little further removed from the familiarity of the country I knew. It has grown, blossomed and matured into a global powerhouse and to me the metamorphosis has been rapid. Going back just once a year has made the changes more apparent to me and more so on my last trip, a few months ago. The obvious ones are the economy and the opening up of domestic markets.

Here, in London, there has been a huge change in the perception of India in general and Indians in particular. Hardly a week goes by in the financial press without a report regarding outsourcing, call centres and IT off-shoring, or without the fashion and media journals waxing lyrical about a fashion designer, artist or film director. Indian haute couture was virtually unknown until a decade ago. This has changed progressively with international celebrities and socialites starting to experiment with wearing outfits designed by Indian designers. Prominent among these have been Cherie Blair, wife of the current British Prime Minister; Madonna, the ever-inventive pop star and the Oscar-winning actress, Dame Judi Dench. French actress, Sophie Marceau donned gowns by designers, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla in a Bond film, The World Is Not Enough.

The country’s fashion is making a global impact – designer, Ritu Beri is being hailed as the new Stella McCartney and other Indian fashion designers such as Rohit Bal and Hemant Trevedi are creating ripples on the international fashion scene. The ethnic platform which appealed to a mainly Indian audience and on which they built their reputation, has given way to a repertoire that has universal appeal. When Hermes starts to sell saris one knows Indian fashion has arrived in more ways than one.

In the final analysis, if I had to encapsulate the change in a single word then it would be – CHOICE. The freedom to choose what we want and I don’t mean just materially. It is the choices we have in career, entertainment, travel, business, medicine, banking, education and to know that whatever we choose, there are no boundaries. We have left the baggage of our colonial past behind and we are now comfortable in our own skins – and very proud of it too.

[Having written, produced and acted in numerous ad films and television serials for over 12 years, Radha Seth Sarwal left India in 1994. She and her husband are self-confessed travel addicts, hopping around the English countryside and northern Europe in their single-engine aircraft.]