‘Why did you reject a job offer?’
Asked my frustrated uncle to his son who just completed his engineering and was
offered a hefty package of 6 digits per annum. Rocky urf Ranjeet kumar remained
least bothered and preferred concentrating on his PUBG rather replying his dad
who repeated the same question finally with a chappal in his hands only to
break his son’s concentration who I guess lost the battle of PUBG with same
regret as Marathas during the battle of Panipat and counted his father as an
invader who broke his concentration by supporting the opposition in an
important battle. He got up from his chair, kept the cell in his pocket and
without wasting much energy simply replied his dad.
‘Apna time ayega’ and left the scene with a pride and a walk like a
branded hero of bollywood as if he has decoded the path to success. The father
left bemused with background music of ‘Gully Boy’ in his son’s cell phone.
Gone are the days when majority
of 90’s youth dreamt of completing the most popular Bachelor degree as B.TECH
and cream wanted to invest in being MBBS. As we entered in 2000 era rightly
called RHTDM phase when first decade made few adjustments and inspired youth to
be lured towards the Management degrees with MBBS holding its own value as it
is. The career choice of the youth was much like the ‘a blind sheep’ when
following the crowd was the motto and hefty packages with privileged onsite
opportunities were the only destinations that was fed deep into the
subconscious minds of younger population.
The definition of success was
simple during 90’s aiming for least complicated life style like Surendra Sahni
from Bollywood flick, a fixed 9-5 Job in a power house and scooter with wife
and kids enjoying best weekend with an occasional movie in theater and pani
puri. The definition changed in last years of first decade of 2000 when hefty
packages, a big caaaaaaar and an
onsite visit faded Surendra Sahni into career oriented ‘Mr X’ yet contributing
towards the development of country with his contribution towards the various
fields ranging from IT, Telecom, Electronics, Medical and many more.
Then what prompted the son of
worried dad saying ‘Apna time ayega’
despite having an offer in one hand and expensive iphone X in other. Well the
youth answered himself.
‘I am just following my heart’
adjusting his rapper cap with a silver chain and neatly trimmed beard, he looked
rigid and his eyes penetrating deep into my eyes as if questioning my very
existence making me little uncomfortable and with an attitude and swag next to Dinchak level. He just looked above and
touched the poster of someone out of regard who had rocked the world of fame
without any formal education and broke all the barriers of old fashioned trends
of attaining the success, I looked at the poster and it was of ‘Dinchak Pooja’. After all majority of youth
regarded her as the inspiration and an idol who followed her heart without
using brains and deleted the word wisdom from her dictionary and rose to obnoxious
fame but setting the trend for youth like Rocky.
He didn’t prefer being questioned
about his future plans and platform he might be using for his success but
preferred putting it in quotes and words on the social media platform with
loads of hashtags. Before I could ask more questions and get to know his mind, like
every grown up cousin will do, he excused himself from the “irritating” cousin
and pulled his cell from his pocket, adjusting the selfie stick tied to the
table and fixing his phone he opened the ‘Tik Tok’ app and recorded his
performance just like an executive delivers his business presentation to his esteemed
clients. It’s not sure how many rounds of appreciation an executive gets after
a presentation but the guy sitting opposite to me got the result within just a few
minutes. He showed the hearts and likes of his followers who seemed to be in
range of 113k’s, god knows how we have followers of anything and everything.
‘This is life you know bro… I
just rock, these people are crazy about me’ he said with an excitement in a videshi accent leaving me with a blank
stare wondering ‘Bhaiya’ turned to bro and excitement of delivering
presentation and getting rewarded by manager and clients seemed useless to me
but I remained patient.
Things changed quickly yet it was
a slow change, the fight for survival within the telecom sectors and
advancement in technology highlighted the youth of 90’s and 2000’s as unlucky
to have missed 3G and 4G era and further various other career options which we
could have opted by following so called ‘heart’, we remained silent due to less
technological advancement that kept us to landline, pager and max Nokia 3300. But
let’s not forget the fact that many of us were contributing towards the technology
so that the youth like Rocky can use the platform and find various other
unthinkable means to achieve so called “success”.
‘My aim is to become Youth Icon’
he replied with a pride in his loud and arrogant voice and my eyes left wide
open wondering about the souls of ‘Steve Jobs’ , ‘Stefan Hawkins’ ,’APJ Abdul
kalam’ who if watching this must be wondering just like me.
‘Why not to opt for job after
your graduation, you can be an icon in the field you have studied’ I asked humbly
with least expectation of getting any favorable reply.
‘I was born creative, education
destroyed me’ he said and I couldn’t resist wondering and feeling pity on
people who studied for becoming an inspiration. Well no questions or objection
on his thoughts and principles of life but it seemed the social media youth is
well equipped with self-motivated thoughts, abundance knowledge to counter long
lasting traditions of success and handful of icons who have rose to fame with a
wink of an eye, I could see another poster on his wall of a wink girl from
south. Wow I said to myself ‘The Hardik Pandya generation is all set to rock
like my cousin rocky’ How things have deteriorated from Rahul Dravid’s era to
Pandya’s.
‘What do you want to become?’ I
questioned him politely taking care of his aggressive nature of getting bored
of same question, even after his display of followers on social media I was
unable to figure out what exactly is the occupation that he is being driven
into. He stopped fondling with his cell phone and finally he glared at me again
after enjoying hearts from his followers and was visibly confused. I was
expecting a quick response and ending the conversation on dead note. He relaxed
himself on his revolving chair, scratched his head, mincing his eyes and
curving his lips tightly he thought for a moment, I guess he was exploring all
the options in his head without any clear picture of what exactly is the
destination.
‘I want to be extremely rich and
powerful’ he replied and I got my answer, looked at him with gentle look and
excused myself as he had to make few more videos for his fans. While leaving
the room I saw an offer letter torn apart and another poster of rock star ‘Honey
Singh and Badshah’ on his wall and I left with a silent prayer in my heart ‘God
Save Our dear Youth’
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