Happy Wheels: Manish Mansukhani (left), wife Nishta, and their child Rishabh pose happily next to a financed sedan

Buy now, pay later. Use plastic. Take a personal loan. Save on rent and taxes by taking a housing loan. They're queueing up to give you money

Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz

When the late Janis Joplin, high-priestess of the sixties' anti-establishment, bawled out this ditty, rebellion was in, scowling at materialism was fashionable, excess was the way to go, and death was just around the next bend. Yeah right, it's tough to imagine such times existed. They surely don't exist now, and when Mercedes Benz actually had the gall to use that song as a jingle in a television commercial, it was apt testimony to the fact that Joplin, her Lord and her angst against America's business culture all died not too long after she did. And yes, so what if the Lord and your fair-weather friends won't help you out with that three-box-with-the-three-pointed-star purchase-your friendly-neighbourhood auto financier is itching to lend a hand.

Sorry Janis, but you're just not relevant any longer. Today's measure of success isn't a sad song. Rather, it's the home you buy, the car(s) you drive, the number of (overseas) vacations you take, the underwear brand you pick, and the surround-sound system on which you listen to (and view) Britney Spears fantasising about her loss of virginity. What's more, you aren't feeling guilty about such indulgences, the way perhaps your parents did. Also, unlike your parents, you don't think debt is a four-letter word, and that stashing up money for the geriatric phase is an imperative. You love debt, credit turns you on, and plastic is your muse. You are part of the Great Indian Credit Economy, you're a perfectly round peg in a perfectly round hole, you want to live forever, and-scream it aloud-you're enjoying every minute of the ride.

Of course it wasn't always this way. Remember those times (if you don't you could ask your parents about them) when interest rates were so high that taking a loan to buy a house meant either buying a house in the distant boondocks or sponging off your parents to pay those monthly installments (or probably both); when buying a scooter (the Bajaj Chetak, what else!) meant breaking the piggy bank and then settling into a six-month wait; when the only roadworthy car was the Maruti (the others to their credit did have four wheels), and amongst the many people you envied and despised were those inside those dainty little Japanese boxes.

CHANDA KOCHHAR Executive Director, ICICI Bank Universal bank ICICI is an aggressive player on the loans front. Predictably, its executive director speaks of the freedom to borrow to meet aspirations

Then economic reforms happened. As the private banks began opening the purse strings, and, more recently, as interest rates softened, you slowly began to start believing that being the proud owner of a home and senility didn't necessarily have to coincide; that you could actually be inside one of those Japanese four-wheeled contraptions (and in the process become a part of the envied and the despised). And, no, you don't have to wait for anything, any longer. The consumer finance jockey calls you up at least once a month, pleading you to take a personal loan. The housing finance firm ends the sanction-to-disbursement rigmarole in 10 days flat. And you never run out of cash. Because the automated teller machine is just outside your home, or your office or, come to think of it, your favourite watering hole.

''The two biggest freedoms that the Indian consumer got over the last decade are the freedom of transacting (through ATMs, call centres, internet banking, etc) and that of borrowing to meet the rising aspirations,'' says Chanda Kochhar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank. To be sure, this has been possible because the banks themselves have changed their method of operating over the past 10-12 years. ''(Earlier), the function of banks was to collect deposits from people and lend them to the industry at a fat margin,'' explains Vivek Kudva, Country Head, Personal Financial Services, India, HSBC. Since industry was in need of funds, the banks had an upper hand in the deal. Result? Service as a concept was alien. These days, the corporates (at least the top end ones) don't need to depend on banks for funding, as they can access cheaper and easier money from other sources like the capital markets.

So as banks are forced to turn to retail as a lending avenue, you, dear consumer, have become king (well, almost). The housing finance sector reflects best the revolution that's taken place in the retail lending space. In fact, the concept of housing finance was non-existent till the late seventies when HDFC was born. Between 1981 and 1991 the mortgage rates remained constant, but post-liberalisation, once the market began determining interest rates, housing loans became more affordable. ''Mortgages coming down to 8-9.5 per cent from 16 per cent just a couple of years back has been responsible for the boom in the housing finance sector. The means for a desire to own property has become a lot easier,'' observes Kudva. The loan multiple (number of times the annual salary to determine loan eligibility), which was around 12 times (15 for metros), has come down to around three now. Add to this the realistic property prices, along with the tax breaks for the housing sector, and it's easy to see why consumers like you prefer shelling out monthly installments rather than the same amount as rent.

KEKI MISTRY Managing Director, HDFC From plain-vanilla home loans in the seventies to home extension, renovation, and floating rate loans in 1999, HDFC has kept pace with the needs of the consumer

Housing finance firms in turn are riding the boom by bring in dollops of innovation, in the guise of loan swaps, floating rate loans, tailor-made loans etc-products that were unheard of even five years ago. And it isn't as if the banks' benevolence ends once you've moved into your new home.

You can borrow to furnish, or to renovate it. ''We have kept pace with the needs of a consumer from a plain vanilla home loan in the seventies to home extension and renovation products to introducing floating rate product for the first time in the country in 1999,'' says Suresh Menon, Head (Western Region), HDFC. Moving into that dream house is just the beginning of the consumer finance food chain. When the pioneer in the Indian consumer loans business, Citibank, says, it knows ''the fastest way to bring home happiness,'' it isn't kidding.

For its part, Citi can take much of the credit for the ''buy now pay later'' phenomenon that's taken urban India by storm. Credit cards are no more a status symbol, cars no more a luxury-80 per cent of car sales are financed by loans-CTVs, ACs, DVDs and other abbreviated durables are par for the course, education can be bankrolled, and even your vacations can be taken care of by equated monthly installments. And you can even take a loan just just for the heck of it, and decide what to do with it once the money is disbursed ''The profile of the Indian economy is changing on the back of the number of poor becoming mass, the mass becoming affluent and the affluent getting rich. Availability and affordability of finance has bought about this change,'' declares ICICI Bank's Kochhar. That explains why the average age of a home loan customer today is 33-35 as compared to 45-50 in the eighties.

Clearly, if there was something like a consumerist nirvana, this is the closest you would have ever got to it post-liberalisation, post-socialist India, post-Independence. And, by the looks of it, with interest rates set to soften further, and more products and services set to invade the market place, the party appears to have only just begun. There is of course a downside to all this. Debt traps and credit card overspends will eventually become issues, but then a little pain for so much pleasure is inevitable, right? If you spot the potholes quick enough, you'd be sure to enjoy the ride. Naturally the ride would be smoother in a Mercedes-Benz.