Us sane Indians. We worry. About intolerance. About regression. About the world spiralling backwards. But mostly, about our children.
For years, the answer seemed obvious. Build them a bubble of wealth and privilege. If you can. Or send them abroad. On scholarships, of course. Get them into top universities. Secure their escape route.
But that plan no longer works.
An American degree is no longer a golden ticket. Even Ivy League graduates struggle. Scott Galloway called it in 2020. The system is broken. Overpriced. Outdated. Failing. Meanwhile, America itself is shifting. Immigration, the backbone of American superpowerdom, is the past. Social mobility is fading. It isn’t the same America that ruled the world. Europe? A museum of past glories. BRICS? Africa is an unknown entity (to me, as to most people I know). Russia and Brazil? Lost causes. Only China, unstable, ageing, has some momentum. But it’s fragile. Very fragile. And India? Well, we are already here.
So where do we send our children?
In 1983, my mother and her friends worried. About us. About our futures. They thought we lacked focus. We weren’t serious enough. Yet, nine out of ten of my childhood friends built careers in IT, software, and technology. Industries that did not even exist when our parents panicked.
Now, I look at my 10-year-old daughter and realise the same thing. The job she will have one day may not even be invented yet. We cannot begin to imagine what industry she will make her first of many careers in. She will be all right. More than all right. That is not what worries me.
It is the world she will inherit that keeps me awake at night.
We cannot predict the future. But we can prepare our kids for uncertainty. Teach them resilience. Courage. Integrity. Teach them to fight intolerance. Question authority. Stand by the oppressed. Hold the line.
Because the world is changing. Not always for the better. Democracy is under threat. Progress is not guaranteed.
We may not see the victory. Maybe even our children will not.
But if we raise them right, maybe their children will.
And laugh at how much we worried.
As they thrive in a future we could never have imagined.
