The economic crisis has slowed India’s economy. Jet Airways workers protested layoffs in Mumbai; they were later reinstated.

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

NEW DELHI, India - Aman Walia, 21, dreamed of flying.
He got a student loan, enrolled in flight attendant school and landed his dream job six months ago with Jet Airways, India’s largest private carrier. Soon he bought his first car, renovated his apartment and threw himself into the exuberant high life of the new India.
This month, he was fired. Jet Airways, having posted large losses , announced layoffs of 1,900 crew members, all recent hires still on probation.
It was part of India’s first taste of pain from a bruising global economic slowdown. “Dreams are on hold right now,” Mr. Walia said.
He and dozens of other former Jet employees marched through the domestic airport here earlier this month, shouting slogans. “Jet Airways, down, down,” they chanted as television news cameras rolled. Although the airline later reversed itself and reinstated the workers, the shock seemed likely to linger.
Until recently, Indians had been spared the worst of the fallout from the current global financial crisis: no mass foreclosures, no banks threatening default under mountains of debt. But India’s economy is now beginning to show signs of a slowdown, in turn tamping down the country’s newfound predilection to spend. Unlike the frugal generations before them, Indians of Mr. Walia’s age and class are the first to consume lustily, without much worry about the future.
Rama Bijapurkar, a management consultant and author of “Winning in the Indian Market,” said India was better protected from the crisis than many other countries because it had been slow to open the floodgates to the world financial sector. “We will feel the heat but not be consumed by the fire,” she said in an e-mail message.
Nevertheless, new uncertainties have set in. The Indian stock market has plummeted, precisely when Indians were jumping into the market for the first time. Property prices have begun to drop, as interest rates rise and developers face an acute capital crunch.
Indians are buying fewer cars, the ultimate symbol of success for many. They are even becoming cautious about buying gold in the days leading to the gift-giving season of Diwali, the biggest Hindu holiday, in late October. Economic growth forecasts have been slightly lowered.
Ashok Kumar, 61, sat behind the counter of his family-owned shop, Gulshan Electronics, dejectedly watching television. The shop should have been bustling with customers as Diwali approached. In more normal times, toasters and rice cookers would be flying off the shelves; families might indulge in a new television set or a DVD player. But not now.
“I don’t know why. The customers are not there,” Mr. Kumar said. “It seems Diwali is postponed.”
Like his fellow shopkeepers at the upscale Khan Market, Mr. Kumar was trying his share of holiday gimmicks: buy an 81-centimeter television, get a satellite dish free. Nothing was working.
Only a few months ago, recalled Sanjeev Mehra, who runs a toy store in the same market, customers were eagerly shopping with their credit cards . Now, it seems, everyone is wary of piling up debt. “People are spending money with a lot of caution,” he said.
Similarly, the downturn in the aviation industry comes just as the sector was prospering on the growth of a new middle class that could afford to fly for the first time.
The number of passengers had more than tripled since economic reforms in 1991, rapidly increasing year after year, until last June, when it began to slip.
Ragini Chopra, the spokeswoman for Jet Airways, said the airline’s fortunes sagged with the rise in fuel prices and then plummeted with the financial crisis over the last month. “The final nail in the coffin was the banking-sector imbroglio,” she said. “That has really taken a toll on the stock market, on corporate sentiment. Everyone has cut down on travel.”
That explanation came as little consolation for Esha Puri, 22. She had worked at Jet for eight months, she said, and had made good money . “It was a wonderful, glamorous life,” she said. “We used to go shopping every day.”