I have seen a slew of posts on LinkedIn recently defending N R Narayana Murthy and S N Subrahmanyan. Old men defending other old men for their shared disdain for the youth. Their remarks, encouraging their subsistence-wage workers to toil 13-15 hours a day, seven days a week (instead of staring at their wives, naturally), are being lauded as nation-building wisdom.
These defenders wax poetic about the work ethic of the 1980s. They hail the body-shopping brilliance of Murthy and the infrastructure-wrangling prowess of Subrahmanyan. They speak of the billions in shareholder value they created, the foreign exchange they earned, and the development they spearheaded (substandard construction, or coding, aside).
The LinkedIn brigade would have us believe that these titans of industry put India on the global map. That their Herculean efforts paved the way for all of us, carving paths through jungles while bearing the IIT filter as their standard. You know, the one that picked the best brains, trained them, and sent them abroad? Yep, that. But let’s be honest—if Steve Harvey asked 100 people what they thought of Infosys or L&T, “Who?” would probably top the board.
And here, we are told to admire their grit. We are told today’s youth are lazy and ungrateful. Ungrateful for not bowing down in awe of these self-made billionaires (or close enough). And we proletariat plebs, they say, lack the ‘aukaat’ to breathe their hallowed air, let alone aspire to greatness. We are, apparently, just waiting our turn to grovel at their feet, hoping some wisdom might drip down as they anoint us with their benevolence.
Well, I have something else to share with you.
JADES-GS-z14-0.
This galaxy is the most distant astronomical object ever found. It was observed using Near-Infrared Spectrograph camera (NIRcam) as part of the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program in 2024, and it measured a redshift of 14.32, placing the galaxy’s formation at an estimated 290 million years after the Big Bang.
Its light began its journey 13.5 billion years ago. But thanks to the expanding universe, its current distance from Earth is over 30 billion light-years. That is two universe lifetimes away.
THAT is the gap between your perception of reality, stuck somewhere in the late last century, and today’s actual reality.
I am 52. A certified uncle to my nieces. But here is the difference. I have not let my misplaced sense of entitlement or righteousness, or indeed my angst about “today’s generation”, turn me into an “Uncle”. Yet.
Unfortunately, you have not just taken up the mantle of “Uncle”, you wear it with a certain pride. Like a clown wears his costume. Except that this clown is drunk. And isn’t aware he’s wearing the costume. Thinking that he is the Ring Master instead. Looking askance at everyone as they point and laugh. Insisting they aren’t laughing at him. You cut a sorry figure for your generation, of which I am, ashamedly, a part.
Dear Sirs (yes, all of you are men, for some strange reason!), the gap between you and reality is vast. So vast you wouldn’t notice reality even if it painted itself purple and danced naked on a harpsichord, singing, “Reality checks are here again.”
Ah, finally a reference you can get. I know. They do not make comedy like they used to. Well, they do not make youth like they used to, either.
And thank dog for that.
P.S.: If you wish to read my other posts on this, you may find them here, here, and here.
