From access to autonomy- how young India is rethinking its aspirations

 

I am in my 40s, a typical early millennial from a middle-class Indian family. My generation lived through an exhilarating phase of transition. From how we lived and worked to what we ate and how we entertained ourselves, everything seemed to be changing at a fascinating pace.

Our 20s saw the shift from traditional retail and sabzi mandis to swanky malls and organized grocery stores. I remember my mom remarking, "Ab toh aaloo bhi AC mein bikta hai!" when I took her grocery shopping in Hyderabad.

We witnessed the arrival of café culture with CCD (where many of us learnt to pronounce 'cappuccino') and pizza culture with Domino's and Pizza Hut.

Our first flights, first smartphones, first encounters with the wonders of the digital world (music without cassettes, instant messaging, email), first movies in multiplexes, first jobs in offices with cubicles and desktops, and our introduction to apartment living.

It was a world of firsts. And we thought it couldn't get much better.

Our 30s proved us wrong.

There came Jio, digital startups, cloud computing, 10-minute deliveries and, finally, AI. Things were never quite the same again.

The world around us today looks radically different from the one we knew in our early teens. Our first-time experiences enthralled us. We reveled in the access and relished the progress.

But what was novel for us is the new normal today.

Things we first experienced in our 20s, many urban Indian kids experience before they even turn two!

So, what does young India look forward to?

I asked my teenage daughter, and her answers were revealing. As expected, much of what excited me in my 20s is already table stakes for her.

She isn't particularly excited by mere access. She wants things her own way.

Solo travel, setting up her own place, taking time to figure out her career, having her freedom and boundaries respected- these figure high on her wish list.

Of course, some of this is teenage rebellion. And my parental instinct is often to respond with the time-tested, "Hum apne parents se kabhi aise nahin bolte the!"

But perhaps it's too simplistic to dismiss it as just that.

For a growing section of young India, independence and individuality seem to be becoming more important markers of progress.

What excited us was getting access to things we'd never experienced. What excites them, perhaps, is having the freedom to decide what to do with that access.

They want to experiment and explore. They're willing to listen but detest being dictated to. They're quick to try, quick to form opinions and equally quick to challenge them.

They're not necessarily a difficult generation. They just think differently.

That’s why when they question the norms we took for granted, we get unnerved- often mistaking it as insolence and irreverence. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that they are growing up in a world fundamentally different from the one we inherited.

We spent much of our youth wanting to experience the transitions. They seem to want the freedom to experience it on their own terms.

Maybe that's the real generational shift which fundamentally defines their attitude towards everything- from relationships to career and from brands to political choices.