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COVER STORY: URBAN YOUTH
The Luckies
The Labelled, Urban, Chilled, Kicked-with-life
Indians are here. They are glib, global, cocky, informed — and spoilt
for choice.
By Anshul Avijit
Arjun Vasanth, an
18-year-old from Bangalore, is on a waltz. And the lady on his arm is
Luck. Passionate about both cars and horses, he drives a Ford Ikon. His
motto: "Detroit, here I come."
Take a peek into Delhi-based Fiamma Uban's see-through
D&G bag. It is a mini bunker of two credit cards, a Nokia 2180, driving
licence, some handy cash, a deo, Maybelline deep tan lipstick, Body Shop
hemp moisturiser-the last two items bought during last season's "to-see-my-cousins"
trip to Melbourne.
Kajal Dhawan, 23, a flight attendant with an
international airline, palm-pilots her entertainment schedule with battleplan
exactitude-Wednesdays at Ghungaroo, Thursdays at 1911, Fridays at Float,
Saturdays at Djinns ... and a yearly break with friends to favourite holiday
space Kuala Lumpur. Not really an epicure-just someone who likes to "work
hard in the day and to chill out at night". Preferred label is Gap,
preferred colour is black and she drives a Hyundai Accent.
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The first rule of the Luckies, like these in Mumbai, is style
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Dress-hexed youngsters
have coincided with a period of Indian history overswept by a surge
of global culture.
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These are the kids in cashmere, intaglios of
the times, a new generation of the urban post-1990s consumer kids whom
sociologist Radhika Chopra of the Delhi School of Economics refers to
as global nomads. "They're great communicators, they can flourish
in a very global, competitive market."
Enter the Luckies-Labelled, Urban, Chilled, Kicked-with-life
Indians-India's luckiest generation ever. A generation that has not seen
any real hardship except on television with access to a 60-channel network
through which it can safely mull over such images and count its blessings.
Yet a generation which is sharply focused on success, challenging the
permutations of its options with Pentium ease.
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Success
is the star which the Luckies chase with awesome spending power.
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BANGALORE
Arjun And Natasha, 25,18
He drives a Ford Icon SXL and has an expensive hobbyhorse. He carries
a cell (but of course) and often goes trekking with his dad, who
runs a leading ad agency. She is Miss Bangalore 2000, likes to read,
and is off to the US for a degree in communication studies next
session with support from her businessman dad.
"I plan to go abroad...
my motto is, Detroit here I come." Arjun
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Being a Lucki is all about "attitude"-an
attitude that is the result of a lethal coalition of labels and lavishness.
This makes the Luckies glib, cocky and knowledgeable. They know the hottest
pub in London, the capital of New South Wales (their last holiday spot),
maybe Hrithik Roshan's cell number, and the name of the person who invented
the Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel in 1920 or whenever. An intelligent
mixture of dazzling factoids and exclusive information. An essential corollary
of impressive knowledge is an impressive accent-with the appropriate inflection,
the stresses, the verbal traction. In the game of Lucki one-upmanship,
it's not really what you say but how you say it. This basically means
talking like a Yank-most Luckies sound suspiciously like the gang from
the New York-based sitcom Friends.
Theirs is a generation which has coincided with
a period in Indian history overswept not by calamity or sputtered nation-building,
but by a surge of global, mostly western culture. The culture of stock
exchanges, multiple credit cards, serious leisure time, off-centre job
options, recycling initiatives and Oscar-outfit gazing. The culture through
which Levi's Orange Tabs quickly gain corner-store legitimacy; where sandy
swim-suit vacations to Phuket are quixotic realities and China is the
latest "happening fun spot". A generation apprised about alternatives
and fussy about selection: chopsticks are chosen over forks, satays are
always dipped in peanut sauce, Absolut is preferred to Smirnoff, Samsonite
rejected for Vuitton, batik swapped for animal prints, capitalism for
socialism. Choices that rarely tempted their fatigued fogyish predecessors.
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"They can flourish
in a global, competitive market."
Radhika Chopra, sociologist
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"They want expensive things but
don't value them."
Monica Chib, psychiatrist
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"Compared to the previous generation, we
are far more indulgent towards our children," says T.P. Vasanth about
his son. "I am a typical nuclear family dad. True, I have spoilt
Arjun but what the heck. After all he is headed for Detroit." After
three generations of aspiring to affluence, successful middle-class India
sees a generation that does not need to struggle to achieve what it has.
"Man, thank God I was still a toddler then," says Delhi teenager
Amberdeep Singh. "I don't know what I would have done without my
Samsung cell phone." For the Luckies, convenience is the first call
to take.
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