Love ain’t free

• Weekend rendezvous in resorts/hotel tops spending by both generations

• Gen-Ex spent a larger share on these trysts than Gen-Next

• Restaurants are the second most popular expense item

• Flowers were the smallest item of spending in both generations

I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love — Beatles, 1964

Even if you were broke, my love don’t cost a thing — Jennifer Lopez, 2001

The lyrics of mushy love songs may not have changed very much in four decades, but lovers in Calcutta are writing a different song — set to the tune of ringing cash registers.

Love and fresh air are passé, as courting couples splurge on flowers, gifts, movies, romantic meals and weekend trysts. A Telegraph-GfK-Mode survey of 100 people in Calcutta shows that young couples in the 20-30 age group spend almost 200 per cent more on their beloveds than those in the 40-50 age group did between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. Average spending by Gen-Next group was Rs 4,371.44 per month against Rs 1,416.96 per month by Gen-X.

J.Lo got it wrong. Love certainly costs and it’s costing a bomb. Nandita Das, a lecturer in her mid-forties, would agree. Her courtship days were all about endless chats over cups of tea in a coffee house, long walks and time spent on the lake front. That won’t do for her 22-year old son Pushan. “When I go out with my girl friend, we spend around Rs 1,000 on lunch in a good restaurant and a movie,” he says.

He has more money in hand and more things to squander it on than his parents had. “Youngsters get 50 times more pocket money than what we used to get when we were young, and when they are employed their spending patterns do not change. They are almost mentally programmed to just spend and spend,” gripes Das.

Blame it on an open and booming economy. Rising income levels, the cable television boom that brought westernised and consumerist lifestyles to middle class drawing rooms and an explosion of lifestyle products and services have combined to rewrite the rules of courtship. Valentine’s Day was just another ordinary February 14 till the classified advertisement columns of newspapers, greeting card companies and gift shops whipped up a frenzy around it.

Society is also shedding its conservatism. With parents rather indulgent about their children’s romances and dates, splurging on sweethearts is more open. The young are increasingly living away from home, too — a state that tends to encourage romance. In Bangalore, most young employees of IT and call centre firms are away from their families. So, says Sathish M., who owns a card and gift shop in the upmarket Koramangala locality, they have the time, money and freedom to get into relationships.

Ten years ago, when Sumathi Ravindran set up her online florist business, Bangalore Blooms, there were few clients and little competition. Now half her customers are in the 20-35 years age group. Bangalore has close to 30 online florist and gift delivery services as young professionals on assignments abroad keep in touch with their heartthrobs.

Kshitij Mehra, a 26-year-old IT professional, got formally engaged to his girlfriend of two years before going to the United States on a year-long project. Once, to make up after a fight, Mehra had sorry cards, chocolates and flowers delivered to her every day for one week. He also sends miss-you messages, in the form of cards and gifts, once a week. “Spending Rs 500 a week on a gift for my fiancée doesn’t seem like an extravagance,” he says.

A dozen red roses delivered by Bangalore Blooms costs Rs 390. The shop regularly gets orders for bouquets costing up to Rs 2,000 from young professionals. The large soft toys decorating Sathish’s shop window may cost anywhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 but they fly off the shelves.

‘Have money will spend’ appears to be the motto, as the salaries of young professionals rise faster than the rate of inflation. Human resource consultancy firm Hewitt Associates’ Annual India Salary Increase Survey shows salaries increasing steadily from 11.4 per cent to 14.8 per cent between 2003 and 2007. But in that period, inflation (the rate at which prices increase) at the retail level was only between 3.8 per cent and 6.5 per cent. The rate of inflation in the 1970s and 1980s was much higher (upwards of 7 per cent) while salary increases were negligible. So the older generation didn’t have money to throw around. “Nothing made me happier than receiving a good book and a clutch of flowers,” recalls Das. “I don’t think that happens these days, does it?”

But there’s news for Das and her contemporaries. If she was being courted today the same way as she was in her twenties, her beau would be spending more than her son does. When the expenditure of both age groups is adjusted for inflation, the Rs 1,416.96 overall courtship bill of the older generation soars to Rs 6,817.2 while the Rs 4,371.44 spent by the younger generation works out to just Rs 908.5! It’s the astronomical prices and the in-your-face spending by Gen-Next that’s grabbing all the attention.

Spending patterns between the two generations haven’t really changed. Weekend getaways top the list among both. Nikhil Rungta, head, marketing at yatra.com, says the number of couples going out for dirty weekends has gone up. That’s the only time these cash-rich but time-poor couples get away from their daily routine. The survey, however, shows the older generation was naughtier — weekend trysts accounted for 45 per cent of their total courtship expenditure and the only head in which it is ahead of the younger generation. Today’s youth has a slightly larger share in all other categories (see table).

Young couples, says Namrata Ray, manager, events and entertainment, The Park, Calcutta, are more adventurous with food and liquor, insisting on the best champagnes and wines while on dates. That’s a far cry from what Biplab Dutta, a businessman in his mid-forties, did in his youth — he would treat his wife to egg rolls on Park Street, with an occasional visit to a good restaurant.

“It was far easier to fall and stay in love in my time,” Dutta muses. But he forgets that between the Beatles and J.Lo, there was Madonna singing “’cause we’re living in a material world” even as she declared that the “boy with the cold hard cash is always Mr Right.”