'People will spend Rs.500,000 on a bypass surgery 20 years down the line, but they don't want to spend Rs.99 a day today on fitness,' said Bhatia.

Marketers attribute this phenomenon to Indians having been conditioned over a period of time to deal with situations as they arise, and not specifically plan for a negative event.

They even have a term for a society's level of willingness to prepare for negative events or take steps to avert such occurrences - uncertainty avoidance. The lower the count as per this parameter, the more unwilling is a society to face reality.

'India lies very low on uncertainty avoidance compared to a lot of other countries. So we tend to deal with life on a day-to-day basis,' said marketing expert and director at KPMG Anand Ramanathan.

'The attitude of 'chalta hai' (all is fine) has been passed on from one generation to another. So even while incomes have gone up, people still have this attitude,' he added.

In a seminal study conducted across 70 countries in 2003, noted behavioural expert Geert Hofstede had said: 'In Germany, there is a reasonable high uncertainty avoidance (65) compared to India where it is around 40.'

In other words, Germans tend to reduce risks to the minimum and plan for the future, unlike Indians. But it's not as if Indians are oblivious of the need to prepare for contingencies.

'I know I need to lose weight, plan for my future and stuff like that. I keep promising myself I will join a gym next month, save enough money to start investing in a retirement plan. But these things just get pushed back,' said Prahlad Sharma, a 29-year-old sales executive.

'But these have become recurring New Year resolutions.'

(James Jose can be reached at james.jose@ians.in)