|
One
day in 1997, Gaurav Dutt, then in class ix, woke up and decided
he wanted to go to business school. Now a third-year student of
math at Delhi's venerable St Stephen's College, 20-year-old Dutt
is a member of the college's wildlife and music clubs, and spends
his time on sports, indoor and outdoor, and the requisite amount
of math. He still wants to go to B-school, but there's been a minor
addition to his career plan-post-MBA he wants to enroll in a US
university for a PhD in finance. If that sounds too specific for
a young man still to graduate, consider the case of Salil Mulay,
a 21-year-old third year student of math at Mumbai's St Xavier's
college who wants to pursue a course in actuarial science because
"insurance is a booming segment".
Prashant Hegde, 20 and Arnav Sinha, who is
a year older study in the sane city as Dutt, but in a school that
is a couple of tens of kilometres away and far more verdant, the
Indian Institute of Technology. Hegde echoes Dutt's sentiments but
Sinha puts a larger, more discerning slant to the reason they are
at IIT. "Whatever we are doing now will help us handle the
competition we are sure to face later." There's also the material
aspect, each of the three gently remind this writer: good jobs,
fashionable threads, fast cars, and money with a capital M. A recent
ORG-MARG A.C. Nielsen survey of 3,000 young people between the ages
of 18 and 20 found 75 per cent of the respondents picking money
as the most important thing in life. "You have to make enough
money to support your other interests, your family, the kind of
lifestyle you want," says Vikas Jawa, a student of economics
at SRCC, Delhi. And if you still don't know what you want, adds
the IIT duo, never mind, being in a school like IIT opens a world
of possibilities. And a 8 a.m.-to-2.00 a.m. day replete with classes,
extra-curricular activities, and the odd vice or two teaches you
to work the system and emerge on top.
|
|
|
While fun has become a
serious institutionalised activity, academics has become the
passport to better things in life
|
Welcome to the world of the GenNexters, the
first generation of Indians to have spent more than half their existence
in a new, free-market oriented India. "I want to make my own
choices," says Vini Goel, a student of management at Bangalore's
St Joseph's College of Management, who claims her generation isn't
constrained by the past or parental control. "Whether it turns
out good or bad, it is after all my choice and I will live with
it." All that doesn't translate into a generation of Valids
(remember Gattaca?) obsessed with the uni-dimensional pursuit of
a B-school degree. There's enough variety and social awareness available
(in this article, and among GenNexters) to sate a bleeding heart.
Abhimanyu Sarvagyam, a 19-year-old student of chemistry at Chennai's
Loyola college would prefer nothing more than a career in oceanography;
his batchmate Vinayak Nagaraj studies the martial arts, is ex-president
of the debating society, and wants to join the United Nations; and
Divya Mehta, a student of economics at Kolkata's hoary St Xavier's
wants to propagate the message of vegetarianism.
There it is, hidden in the 'I want to be...'
hopes of the generation, the a-word that their parents, and their
parents, in turn, eschewed, ambition. "If you don't drive yourself,
you won't survive," says Paul Sebastian, a student of IIT Delhi.
That's a mature Andy Grovish kind of sentiment coming from a 22-year-old,
but don't say as much to Sebastian. He and the majority of his generation
don't believe in role models. "I do not want to follow anyone,"
says Manish Patadia, a student of commerce at Delhi's SRCC, who
doesn't want to wait till he is 60 to be rich. He'll do anything
to be that: he already distributes medical products when he isn't
in college, is willing to pursue a ca, enroll in a business school-anything.
|
|
|
GenNext doesn't believe
in rebelling,at least not in the same way their parents did
|
Attribute that to the free market environs in
which GenNexters grew up: for while fun has become a serious institutionalised
activity, academics has become the passport to the better things
in life. That's meant a break from the past in some cases: At Delhi's
Stephen's, for instance, the mid-semester January examinations were
never taken seriously by students. Campus tradition had it that
one had to flunk these to do well in the end-semester examinations.
Today, no one is willing to risk taking the January tests lightly.
"Our students have become very serious," says Anil Wilson,
Principal, St. Stephens. And very materialistic, adds a disgruntled
Joseph M. Dias, the Principal at Mumbai's St Xavier's College. "They
are consumerist and career-oriented," he grouches. That may
be the case but no one is complaining, least of all parents-GenNext
doesn't believe in rebelling, at least not in the same sort of way
their beat-generation parents (some of them must have surely rebelled)
did. The times have changed, parents, in general, are far more liberal,
and intense competition at school leaves little time for rebellion.
And Father Dias needn't worry: all that consumerism
and materialism doesn't come at the cost of values. Three out of
every four respondents to the ORG-MARG A.C. Nielsen survey didn't
believe in adopting the wrong means to achieve their objectives
and 66 per cent said they certainly would not pay money to gain
admission into the educational institution of their choice. Evidently,
the first decade and more of reforms may not have done all that
much for the Indian economy, but it has created a generation of
organisation kids who revel unashamedly in the worship of Mammon
but still retain enough values to tell good from bad. Surely, that's
reason enough to cheer in these trying times.
-additional reporting by Dipayan Baishya,
Nitya Varadarajan, and Venkatesha Babu
|
TREADMILL
|
| Not All Froth
 Go
on. Call it a hangover from festive December if you will but
I just have to share some good news with you. Beer's good
for you. In preliminary studies (these studies are always
preliminary, have you noticed?) of a group of men suffering
from coronary artery disease, the researchers found that drinking
one beer (that's the small pint bottle and not the big 750-ml
bloater!) every day for a month can reduce the risk of a heart
attack. The study, conducted in Israel, is an addition to
growing evidence that a bit of booze may actually reduce heart
disease. The healthy post-beer drinking chemical changes that
the study found include decreased cholesterol, increased anti-oxidants
and reduced fibrinogen levels.
But before you head off to the bar, here's a bummer. The
results do not mean that beer is the only cause for lowering
heart disease risk. Exercise must complement the beneficial
effects of beer.
Now, there are two words in the paragraphs above that bear
revisiting. One, of course, as I have mentioned is 'preliminary'.
It's a hedge that researchers use before endorsing anything
that goes into your diet-from caffeine to sugar to alcohol.
Don't be dismayed if another group of researchers debunk the
beer theory. The other word Muscles Mani would like to bring
to his readers' attention is 'exercise'. Remember, no diet
works without exercise.
To put you on your way, here's some great stuff for your
shoulders. The idea is to keep changing your routine so that
the muscles don't get used to the same old stuff. Here are
three new ones for building your shoulders. Start with barbell
front raises but don't do them standing. Use an incline bench,
which takes away any tendency to cheat. Do a set with a very
lightweight for 15-25 reps before going into three working
sets of 10-12 reps each.
The second exercise is the underhand, close-grip press.
Instead of free weights, use a Smith machine. After a warm-up
of 15-25 reps, do three sets, pyramiding the weights up while
lowering the reps from 12 to 10 to eight.
The third on the list is the quarter-rep standing lateral
raise. Instead of bringing your arms down to your sides bring
them down only to a quarter of that distance. Why? Because
bringing them all the way down actually provides a rest for
the shoulders in the last fourth of the movement-that's known
as a training "dead zone", which does nothing for
you. Again three sets with pyramidal increase in weights as
you go up.
-MUSCLES MANI
|
|
