ONE day in February 2024, I was on a flight from Mumbai to Bengaluru. Sat next to me was a young girl of 14. Sitting across the aisle and travelling with her was her older brother, all of 19. The two were on their way to see their grandmother. Ria is just into her early teens and Rishabh (names changed with permission) is just about in the last of his teenage years.
The bubbly Ria settled into her seat and immediately started chatting me up with a signature comment of a frequent flyer, "I hate aisle seats." "So, you fly a lot?" I asked, and thus began our conversation. We spoke a lot, but there is one big thing that caught my attention. At some point, I asked her a question we 'oldies' love to ask the 'youngies' (forgive the ageism, please): "What's your ambition, Ria?" Pop came the reply without a pause, "I want to be a fashion blogger." Midway through the flight, I requested Ria if she could switch seats with Rishabh. She obliged. "What's your ambition, Rishabh?" was popped at him, too.
Without a thought, Rishabh said he wanted to be a radio jockey and that he was already checking out how to go about it.
This planted a thought in my head-to check out from the larger India, quite apart from the hallowed space of air-travellers, what the ambition of the new young are. I started research across urban and rural spaces. We talk of 475 urban agglomerations in India today and a whopping 6,43,700 villages; my research covered a nano percentage of these. But it is nevertheless telling.
New India and the new Indian are divided in ambition. While urban folk by and large are now experimenting with ambition that is less solid in its intent than ever before, rural Indians have embraced the ambitions that exclusively belonged to the Gen Y and Gen Z folks of urban India.
Bu hikaye The New Indian Express dergisinin September 17, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye The New Indian Express dergisinin September 17, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
'It Was Challenging to Make It Sound Like You Know What You're Talking About'
For those who haven't seen the first season of The Diplomat, how would you describe the show?
Back to Where It All Began
The star of Adarsh Gourav's Superboys of Malegaon is the Maharashtrian city that celebrates 90s' Bollywood with all its quirks and clichés
Understanding the Forgotten Self
Explore the profound relationship between the soul and body, uncovering true self-awareness and the journey towards spiritual fulfillment
Going Down Wikipedia Rabbit Hole
In new research involving more than 4,80,000 Wikipedia users in 14 languages across 50 countries, US researchers led by Dale Zhou at the University of Pennsylvania studied three distinctly different ways of going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole
One Man is an Island
The Majuli Music Festival in Assam shines the light on the world's largest inhabited river island and the need to keep its indigenous culture alive
Getting Dirty with It
A bizarre trend of eating dirt for health benefits is the new rage on social media
We Become the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Millennials at Work
It's Time to Divide the Bigger Indian States into Manageable Units
A time bomb, that could rip apart the unity of India, is silently ticking in the background.
Delhi's Pollution Crisis Needs Evidence-based Policy Reform
The capital of the world's largest democracy—Delhi—is grappling with a pollution crisis. With approximately 80 per cent of Delhi's waste being generated by only about 20 per cent of the people, the city is finding itself in an increasingly challenging situation.
Shaping Imaginations at a Pinch
Dolon Kundu's niche pottery blends cultural and mythological symbols from rural Bengal
