A Generation Stuck

“Is this where I belong?”, is a question we often find ourselves stumbling upon. Imagine this: Ten years have passed since you bid farewell to the likes of college life; after a tough day at work you decide to wind down, journal, and go back to simple things that instigated the purest form of peace from deep within. You think of vast fields of farmland, tucked in the small village you visited every summer; the gentle breeze; how the uncle selling kulfis would pass near your house every day at 6 PM sharp, never too late and never on Sundays; when the elders in the family would peel oranges for the younger ones on long summer nights; the sound of ghungroos from the neighborhood aunt that teaches Bharatnatyam to young girls - you went there once, and fell in love with the art of dancing. And then a shift happens - you think of all the nights you partied away in clubs; dancing and letting loose with friends; attending concerts and impromptu road trips; the walks back from night clubs; the serenity of lying down with your friends and discussing life at 3 AM; and it brings you peace just the same. Often, I see myself existing in the olden generation, the 1900s, when scents and letters were the norm of communication, when Abhi Na Jao Chod Kar would play in the backdrop every night, where people found solace in scripts and shayaris, how every Sunday morning home would be filled with scents of kachoris and jalebis - the delicate ones covered in rabdi, when sitting with friends for picnics in the gardens - perfectly square sandwiches, and orange juice. A part of me feels so very away from the same generation, the generation that would stop its women from going out late, the same generation that committed heinous acts, the same generation whose traditional views often clash with my own. Other times, I can’t imagine myself away from the likes of the so-called GenZ. The sprint towards diverse globalization, increased opportunities, the freedom every nightingale of my childhood sang of, when every Saturday I walk back home with the calmness of the night evading my senses, when no one stops a group of friends from jumping into pools late at night, when choice is a privilege not a necessity. Then there are days I don’t see myself belonging - the days I wish to spend tucked in the corner of a library, where loud music and thumping of footsteps can’t be heard, the days I miss having Kadak chai from a roadside tapri, on the days when every ingrained moment of speculation seems irrefutable. It all comes down to this - some days I belong to the muse of past, some to the gallery of future, but most days I belong with hundreds(if not more) like me, stuck in an endless museum of every parity that circumscribes the words of realism.