Nats and adult suffrage

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Natasha aka Nats, my Gen Z neighbour, was returning from a dusk to dawn party, as I was coming in from a dawn attempt at exercise.

"Sup yo, Rahul bruh?" Nats chirped, jumping out of the driver's seat.

"So dear Nats, I can see you're making full use of turning eighteen, driving… uhm… clearly you've had a few."

"Yeah dude, more than a few (non-stop giggles + two eye rolls).

"And soon, this is will also be your first election, wow drinking, driving and voting... it's nice that you'll even be voting now, how does it feel, deciding who your preferred candidate is?" I asked quite excited.

"I recall vividly my first voting… back in 1980!"

Nats was unusually subdued at this question.

"Are you seeking to spoil my ‘high', Rahul bruh?"

"Not trying to spoil anything…" I began.

"I haven't enlisted to vote," she said sullenly, "and I'm not planning to - in any case, even if I did vote, it would have to be in Hoshiarpur, Punjab and I'm not planning a trip!"

"Why not?" I asked aghast, "you're much too young to be so cynical and too energetic to be so inertia filled."

‘What's the point of voting… what difference will it make, bruh tell me?"

"Listen, every vote…," I began.

‘Dude, yeah yeah, I know, every vote counts, that's not a good enough reason."

"Look if you kids don't speak up, keep your faces buried in your phones… then you are truly Gen Zzzzz… the fast-asleep generation, complain complain complain… and when the time comes to makes a difference, you're nowhere on the horizon. Why's there no FOMO when it comes to voting, Natasha? Why no ‘Fear Of Missing Out'?"

"Dude the country's going to shit. What am I going to do to stop the process, man? We're run by a country of uncles… and even the younger politicians behave like uncles. I'm done with men standing in front of mics… pointing their index fingers at me, promising me development, and change… the city filled with giant cut outs of smiling men with dyed hair. Man, these are the same men who promise me care
and safety.

Every day we hear about women being gang-raped in the back of moving cars, I'm done with promises that aren't being kept! Look bruh, these research dudes keep throwing in our faces that we, young people, constitute half the population… 50 per cent of India's population is below 25… where am I being addressed? What's the narrative bruh? Tell me, tell me how ‘woke' are all these uncles to what we need… wagging their fingers at us. And if you think this is some ‘townie' privileged kid like me talking, so many of my friends in Hoshiarpur, dude they can't get jobs… you wanna address me, then get my
generation employed!

Bruh, you know more than anyone else, that ignoring us, talking down to us, condescension, won't cut it - dude, what's the moral fiber of this country that you feel so patriotic about, dark Draconian forces, unleashing a reign of terror against their opponents. Dudes don't you want a level playing field, I mean how scared are you?

Our ‘men in charge'… always on a stage, mouthing off against everyone else…"

Nats paused for a second while the steam coming out of her ears, abated. She then continued.

"There are no good guys and bad guys... there are indifferent guys. Everyone's an uncle lecturing me in a dialect I don't understand, unsmiling, pedantic, patronizing - all our lives, we've had older people who have no clue how to address younger people, we are a different generation, dude, very different from you guys when you were younger. We won't stand for moralising shit, or else we'll just walk away!"
Frankly I think I'm just gonna opt for a NOTA!" Nats said.

‘Wow… not bad… that's an option, when you choose NOTA… ‘None Of The Above' is an option, Nats," I said optimistically.

"No bruh. NOTA isn't ‘None Of The Above'. NOTA spells No thanks!" Nats concluded, as she walked away.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com