Still, We Give a Damn?

I took up an interesting job today- to clean my up my “junk” folder of all the “junk” and renovate it into a depressingly neat place! – Obviously to accommodate some more junk that life will throw at me until the next such Sunday.

Half filled excels some boring office ppts, stupid photos and an unfinished thought on a word doc.– file name “Gstring Patriots”….

This was a fragmentary piece of my blog post, reeking with my cynicism about the young generations’ patriotism , the generation of which I am very much a part of. The date this file was created – April 3 2011, The morning on which TOI which exclaimed - “India, World Cricket Champions”.

I read it. Reread it. Read it again. I wondered, has something changed since that day….?

I went back in time, visualized “that” hysterical night outside the Wankhede Stadium. Backless Beauties, Tattooed shoulder blades, skimpy skirts, low rise lowers and pierced tounges shouting “Indiaaaa…..India.!!!” . A blatant showoff of the newly hatched, managing the Hondas and the Audis. VLCC crafted “Bodies”, with the tiranga wrap and the figure hugging Blue India T- Shirt…the uproar of “Vande Mataram”. I smirked, and reminded myself that we are anything but patriots. We are the generation which “gives a damn”. I was convinced that this display of patriotism is a commercialized one, a media design.

But last night I made a personal confession- that I was somewhere wrong about a very strongly held opinion. To experience the change in one’s own outlook, by self realization is wonderful.

I wondered, What has changed in a quarter- I looked around and then within

Facebook being used by today’s dudes and dudettes not only to say “SUPALike My New IPhone” but to “ Join Anna Hazare’s Cause”. The profile pic is not much a matter of life and death, but the tag of “I Support IAC” has become important. Of course we still had few losers here too, but there always is a “shallow soul exception” we have to make .

Everyone still wants to be “In Vogue” with a twist , a Gandhian Topi.So what if we wear a short or a spaghetti .

We may earn Thousands a month- but paying a rupee as a bribe , has started pricking somewhere.

From somewhere the guts have showed up, we now can shut up the losers (read cynics) even at the coffee machine conversations.

Arnab Goswami’s newshour debate has definitely become more stimulating than MTV.

Certainly , Its no longer just about "cricket" and "bollywood"!

The energy has been channelized into the right direction with a definite shift in belief that you need not be from a Top B School,-- just “speak UP”

True we are still the same generation - we still give a damn. But we do so about what we are perceived as. We are ok to be seen as lazy and spoilt…, but when it comes to dumping the junk, we are capable of doing a pretty good job.

I really don’t know what the future beholds for the Jan LokPal Bill. What I know is , this one “angry young man” has made us all introspect about something which we never knew existed within each one of us.

I closed the file, kept the file name as is, "Gstring Patriots"…only the connotation has changed.