Driving our way to freedom

“Is it a star, or a mobile tower? “, asked my friend.
“No, dude, it happens to be a plane flying at a low altitude, it might be about to land “this comment was from a more sober one.
Anyway, I was enjoying the scintillating conversation as we all were some 40 kms out of Bangalore, in the outskirts, Mysore road to be precisely. At 11 pm at night, we three were relaxing by the side of the road, with chilled beer cans luring us .The journey plans were made instantaneous, as a friend of mine had bought her first Maruti (she refers to herself as ‘the proud owner of Maruti’) and we three had hit the road, which was calm and serene at the early hours of nightfall to be disturbed only by the sounds of long distance buses rushing past us. We had neither found our Dhaba, which was one of the aims; we hadn’t completed a long journey either, which was another aim; but I was definitely happy being in the company of my close friends and out of the bustling city roads and in perfect communion with wilderness.

Hutch still had range .We made calls to the rest of our so called gang, in conference mode, thanks to this innovation which helped us to share our world with other friends in different cities simultaneously. It seems they were also able to reciprocate our ecstasy, like minds :-) .Once that was also over, we started musing over Indian youth and aspirations. I am under the impression that we are indeed a lucky generation, may be we might have sacrificed some of our dreams by chasing the IT bandwagon, (we are far from the ideal society proposed by Socrates, where every one would be doing that job in which they are the best at), but were indeed having a lifestyle comparable with the youth of the world, I mean developed nations in particular. People may scorn us for hopping around with jobs , accusing us to be too irresponsible , basking in the glory of what we have done till now .But I would put it in another way , we might be opportunistic , but we are double ambitious as well ,more than that of midnights children. They had to struggle a lot to set up their life, but we have done it relatively easy.

We are miles ahead of our parents, who would never have dared to think about purchasing a dig cam and paying it out through EMIs .They might never have dreamt of heading to holiday destinations on weekends, they were the happy Indian middle class who enjoyed the Dooradarshan sops and an occasional visit to a movie theater once in three months. The roar of a bus drifted us back from the world of our thoughts. An overcrowded bus, with people even on the top carrying baskets and big bundles. Hey, I thought we were still close to Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of Asia. Right 40 kms out of the city, we were more exposed to the stark reality, which is definitely not in sync with the luxuries of the city. This made me think of one aspect, ours is a lucky generation... But what percentage of the youth is enjoying it? There are more people outside this circle, the less fortunate ones. With these disparities building up, it would be a mistake to jump into any conclusions or generalizations, but one fact I was sure of … still miles to go in this regard.

PS:
And if you want to know what happened to the journey afterwards, well here it goes. We found the dhaba, the food was not as good as we had expected, still we drove in and filled our stomachs as hunger dominated our taste buds. We hit a hump on the road, which made the dynamo pulley of our car go berserk and at midnight 1.30 pm we were calling up the 24 X 7 Maruti servicing centre and by the time we hit our beds , it was 4 am :-)


chasinglife