Monday, May 4, 2020

Youth rejects lucrative offers! You will be shocked by his choice!

‘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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