How do you look at the world if you’re young, Gen-X and have plastic, will pay? How do 

Why would anyone, especially someone from the “twenty-something” generation, replete with residual teenage angst, feel morally obliged to give you the lowdown on their dull, grey lives? I keep asking myself these questions but a man’s got to do what his father didn’t.

We had Nehru, Che, Woodstock, and what have they got? Zara, Chetan Bhagat, and let’s not forget Paris Hilton. We went into raptures when some random aunt in an uncharacteristic burst of NRI generosity brought us a pair of Levis. Or Levees, as they were known back then…. They can saunter into Esprit and pick up whatever the hell they want, throw some plastic on the counter and “do” lunch at Shiro’s before hitting the gym. It’s no big deal. No wonder they’re having quarter-life crises.

Apparently, social historians have wrestled with this conundrum for ages: what does it actually mean to be free, brown and twenty-plus? Trying to make it on one’s own in the big city after a degree from some Ivy League college. Ok, the city is not so big and the degree is kind of average and the college isn’t Ivy League, more like Little League from Nowheresville, USA.

But still, one needs to know, or so the powers-that-be at Fountain Ink have deemed and I Siri’d up my iPhone to do the needful.

Which is how I land up having breakfast at the Motorcycle Café on a crisp November morning in Bangalore with Godhuli, a slim, almost achingly fragile young woman of 26, who treats most questions, mundane or complex, with a mock severity that casts shadows in her limpid, brown eyes. The Motorcycle Museum, by the way, is located on the first floor of an old stone building on Wheeler Road and is home to an impressive collection of WWII vintage bikes with helmets, goggles and leather leggings evoking the atmosphere of a geriatric Hell’s Angels hangout.

We must make an incongruous couple: she in her raffishly elegant, boat-necked, mauve sweat-shirt, the flowery straps of her Intemissimi bra tantalisingly visible, (it’s cool to allow your lingerie to show if it’s Italian) while I’m in chinos, boats and a Fab India reject shirt. I can almost read the waiter’s mind as he takes our order; coffee for yours truly, Spanish omelette and toast for her, “Can’t be her boyfriend, too old, can’t be her father, DNA doesn’t match…”

We kick off with a biggie: What’s your take on capital punishment, as in, “where do you hang?” “Uhm, let’s see, if it’s a weekday, I do the usual shit, pick up groceries, go to the library, my socialising is very necessity-driven, because if I’m too pooped to whip up something, I’ll phone a friend to stop by and have a bite. I’m good with suggestions (wry chuckle), yeah, it’s kind of matlabi, I know. But I make it up to my dinner victim ’cos if I’m on assignment, like a restaurant review in the boonies, it’s always a meal for two, so, I guess it evens out.”

And then?

“Oh, I don’t watch much TV, I download about a trillion GB which I’ll eventually get around to watching some day; Mildred Pierce is a big fave. I don’t watch Sex & the City but I guess that’s because my roommate in college had it on all the time, so I had to endure it by default. My iPod stays on forever, mainly blues stolen from Papa’s collection. That’s deep, (wry chuckle) stolen blues the sweetest. Though I guess with me, it’s mood-driven: some evenings I just chill with folk, acoustic, indie artistes like James Vincent McMurro, Phrazey Ford, Stevie Nicks.

“I so don’t get Pink Floyd, it’s a gender thing, I guess. Back in school, some of the guys insisted we play Dark Side of the Moon in math class to help them concentrate (yeah, right) and we kind of went along with it to prove we weren’t nerdy. I ended up hating both math and Floyd.”

The omelette arrives with two pieces of toast dripping with melting butter and she tucks in with a gusto that eloquently underlines the fact that carbs don’t matter if you’re blessed with good genes and a high basal metabolic rate. She is so amazingly svelte, she makes Naomi Campbell look like a fat pig.

And now that morning has broken?

“If I have yoga, I wake up at 6.30 ’cos that’s when my personal trainer gets here.”

“You have a personal trainer?”

She has the grace to look sheepish but bounces back with, “Yep and a Kannada coach as well because I feel seriously handicapped by being unable to communicate beyond the basics: like the superficial stuff. I mean, I don’t imagine I’ll be reading Kuvempu in the vernacular anytime soon but I would like to have a conversation with my maid that goes beyond, ‘Come at 7 o’ clock tomorrow’ or ‘Put this there’.”

I’m intrigued by her sensitivity to the help, but I need to cut to the chase: what about sleepovers?

Guys don’t pay anymore, we generally go Dutch which is fine by me but I so don’t get this crappy system where someone says, ‘I only had  a starter so that’s all I’m paying for’, which means you have to sit and calculate shit down to the last paisa, totally uncool

“It’s ironic. Back when I was staying at home with my folks, I suppose all that planning and sneaking around to spend time with my boyfriend probably added sizzle to my sex life. Funnily, now that the fruit is no longer forbidden, I’m probably more concerned about my neighbour thinking I’m a slut because the same guy has crashed at my place thrice this month.”

“I thought that showed constancy,” I interject.

She roguishly smacks me while tucking a stray tendril of hair behind her ear before saying, “It doesn’t stop me from doing what I want but I would spare a thought for the neighbours, more for their sense of propriety than mine.”

And how does she make weekends meet?

“I have to admit there’s this divide with my working (class) friends and my school and college pals. With my colleagues, it’s always joints like Windsor Pub (beer, grease and spicy fish curry/pork fry) or Jaymahal Palace (don’t be fooled by the name) and Opus.” The last-named is a popular hangout with the young and the not-so-young with an emphasis on board games, live music and events.

Is she a karaoke diva or a quiz whiz?

“No way, I mean I think it’s great for people who can sing and have an awesome GK, I just like to listen. With my ‘snootier’ pals, we go to Shiro’s, Sunny’s or the UB City mall.”

Who pays? “Guys don’t pay anymore, we generally go Dutch which is fine by me but I so don’t get this crappy system where someone says, ‘I only had a starter so that’s all I’m paying for’, which means you have to sit and calculate shit down to the last paisa, totally uncool.”

We now move on to a no-fly zone for Gen X: politics.

“I not proud of it but I think we’re way behind our peers in Malaysia, Egypt or even Sri Lanka, for that matter. It’s probably because we’ve never gone to sleep hungry but there’s just zero political awareness or empathy here and on the rare occasions we get into it, it’s some kind of distant academic debate, like the UN mock parliament. It’s, like, totally meaningless.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve never been in a riot or experienced the Emergency, but we’re totally detached from it all. I’ll give you an example: when we watched the Rajiv Gandhi assassination on TV, my grandparents sat there crying and I just didn’t get that. I mean, he was cute but end of the day, the guy was a politician, right? I guess you could say we haven’t engaged deeply enough.”

At this point our coffee arrives and it’s almost inevitable that the conversation drifts to Team Anna.

“Oh puh-leaase. It’s so gimmicky—- it’s political blackmail being white-washed by misplaced public outrage. How many of those jerks spouting all that sanctimonious bullshit have actually read Anna’s bill? I’m not saying I have, but to me this whole tamasha looked like an orphan searching for a long-lost father figure. Bunch of deluded farts who think just because they’ve signed up it’s done, the wicked witch is dead and corruption has been eradicated …like small-pox or something.

“It’s not just Anna, take this Slutwalk, they’re all like, yeah, let’s all sign up, let’s do the march. I’m like, why? Because it’s the current topical issue, no thanks, I’ll pass. Coming back to Anna, I’m not knowledgeable enough to come up with a blueprint to curb corruption but I’d say dollar for dollar, the US is far more corrupt. In India, it’s more pervasive and that’s what pisses people off… you think politicians are the only corrupt ones? What about corporate corruption, the bureaucracy, cops, the media? Squeaky clean, Dettol-washed, no way.”

This seems the appropriate moment to check on Godhuli’s professional goals and lifelong ambitions.

It’s probably because we’ve never gone to sleep hungry but there’s just zero political awareness or empathy here and on the rare occasions we get into it, it’s some kind of distant academic debate, like the UN mock parliament. It’s, like, totally meaningless. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve never been in a riot or experienced the Emergency, but we’re totally detached from it all

“As someone whose educational background has zilch to do with my job as a journalist, I want to write meaningfully. Yes, I’m a chick but I have a brain that functions on all cylinders. They say we all have a book in us and yes, I think I have a book in me, or at the very least, an anthology of verse. Let’s see where it goes; as of now it’s an item on my long term to-do list. I don’t have anything terribly interesting to say at this moment but when I feel very strongly about some inner conviction born out of a life-changing experience, move aside, Kiran Desai, that Booker is mine. I sometimes feel like I have life-dreams, when what I really need is a life plan,” she says, with an impish twinkle.

Experts propound the hoary wisdom that you can judge a person’s character by taking a look at their bookshelf; I prefer checking out what makes them laugh which is a far better indicator to what makes them tick. Who are your comedy icons, I enquire.

“A show I absolutely adore is Black Books… and, and Black Adder, definitely, Rowan Atkinson is hysterical! But that’s not to say I didn’t find Hangover funny. I prefer the dry, sarcastic, stuff; I’m not a fan of slapstick or the scatological. I found Rum Diary (the movie starring Johnny Depp as gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson’s persona Paul Kamp) quite brilliant. The dialogue crackled, it was edgy, knowing and way beyond most of the crap that passes for cinema today.

“At the same time I have no time for pseudo-intellectual humour where pretentious farts assume that unless you’re up to speed on all their defining cultural influences, you won’t get it. They’re like, ‘look at me, I’m so smart, I’ve read Sartre’. I’m like, get out of my face, I’ve read Saki. Having said that, I know I want to watch Delhi Belly.”

Having been in and out of a serious relationship, I wonder aloud about the qualities she looks for in a man.

“Where do I begin? With a rib in the Garden of Eden?” she explodes. “Look, the reasons I broke up with my ex are… kind of universal, I suppose. I wouldn’t care if we were from different geographies: it’s just that, most of the time, we were on different planets. He was a hard-core party animal, not that I was some stay-at-home Sati Savitri, but in the end, it got exhausting.“I mean, we’d go out with his buddies, we’d do the tequila shots, we’d yadda-yadda-yadda about soccer till I wanted to kick him in his Jabulanis, we’d come home, I’m doing the driving because he’s like totally wasted, and then, when I’m cuddling an ice-pack at breakfast, he’d want to talk about how ‘epic’ last night was.

“And the next day, it’s Sunday and I’d just want to chill at home or spend time really channel-surfing him. Y’know, see if there’s anything else there besides the cute looks and the schoolboy charm and he’s like, ‘Manu just called, shall we do Hard Rock’?”

“So yes, I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I’d want to scream and swear and throw things or maybe hit him with a hard rock, and I can’t do any of that because we already have a baby around: him.”

What you’re saying is that he wasn’t caring and sensitive?

Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m no party-pooper; I love to get wasted every now and then. But it’s only fun when it happens once in a way, and it’s a drag when it happens on a daily basis. 

“Oh he was… about himself. I mean, women are supposed to be emotionally manipulative, turn on the water-tap, get what they want, but he could do the tear-jerk routine in a heartbeat. Which is, I don’t know, weird, in a way, because guys are not supposed to cry, right?

“Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m no party-pooper; I love to get wasted every now and then. But it’s only fun when it happens once in a way, and it’s a drag when it happens on a daily basis. So next time around, what I’m saying is I’m looking for someone who’s bright, who has opinions and isn’t afraid to express them, who is, what’s the word… articulate, yes, that’s it, but without being a smooth talker. And just a little bit unpredictable.

“I hate it when his mouth opens and I know exactly what he’s going to say… that’s sayonara for a relationship. Or maybe, que sera, sera. And God, I want a guy who isn’t a hypocrite. Not some wuss who whines about how fucked-up things are in this country and how the cops are crooked and take bribes, but gets totally anal because his friends spent a night in the cooler after a pub crawl/brawl because the cops were pissed off when they said, ‘Do you know who I am’?”

And Now For His Story

Meet Drew, kickass soccer player, Brad Pitt body-double, does time in a major ad agency, “did” the States on a soccer scholarship, has some angst issues, dreams of a Golden Lion at Cannes, is, by his own admission a sensitive, caring guy and still hasn’t found what he’s looking for…

He arrives breathless. “Sorry I’m late, man. This client of ours who runs a school for the under-privileged had a press conference that I just couldn’t get out of…”

We’re in Koshy’s Jewel Box, a long-time Bangalore institution with an eclectic menu ranging from roast lamb, fish and chips to beef fry, tender coconut soup and Korean fish. Prince Charles has dined here, as has Pandit Nehru, and P Chidambaram wound up in a scuffle a year ago with an over-zealous photographer which ended up with a one-all scoreline: a broken toe for the honourable minister and a broken lens for the lensman.

Drew opts for egg curry and rice, and your correspondent settles on roti with Kerala-style pork, salad and dal. The waiters at Koshy’s have been around for decades and, to paraphrase Dylan, a hard rain’s gonna fall on any insensitive out-of-towner who snaps his fingers at them or behaves boorishly: one has to applaud the manner in which he is gently but firmly shown his place.

With the ordering out of the way, we kick off with Drew’s favourite hangouts.

“Oh man, a bunch of places: Tavern, Koshy’s, BiereClub, Hard Rock, Opus. My friends are from a pretty broad financial spectrum, so it’s a mixed bag. My work buddies are like, ‘Who let the dogs out’? and I’m like, me, dude, totally.”

So it’s work hard, party hard?

“Not really, I mean, Bangalore’s not like Delhi, right? It’s different, I guess. I’m totally into the Bangalore style of thinking, where your respect for someone is not in proportion to their bank balance or their IPO listing.”

Which is kind of unusual coming from a Gen X-er whose original mission statement was supposed to be: “Show me the money”, so I decide to probe further.

Who would he rather be: Piyush Pandey or Mike Khanna? “Look, of course I’d like to have a lot of money, who wouldn’t? But I want to leave a mark at the same time, to be the guy with that creative spark so I guess Piyush, because you’ve got the fame and the recognition and the dosh,” he allows.

Who are Drew’s real icons?

You’re kidding right, who is going to listen? It’s corruption, dude. What’s the point?

“My dad, man, any day, I’d love to be that guy. He’s so mature, so secure, he’s loyal, he, like, all through his life when he was in a corporate or now, when he’s running his own business, he helps people without expecting anything in return. That is so not today’s world where someone buys you a beer and wants you to be their monkey for the day.”

Having established that he likes what Papa preaches, we move on to his take on politics.

“Actually, I, well, I’m not so clued-up… Ok, put it this way, man, this is not one of those trick questions, right? Ok, I discuss this major-ly with my pals. We have intense discussions about politics: I’m like totally pissed off, who are these guys?

“Let me give you an example: I go past Hosmat every day and there’s like this burst pipe and all this messy sewage leaking from underground. And it’s been like that for three months now, it really pisses me off.”

Aside from that being a civic issue, has he done anything about it? Like phone a corporator, or a friend. “You’re kidding right, who is going to listen? It’s corruption, dude. What’s the point?”

That brings us, albeit by a circuitous route, to the 2G scam and Kanimozhi. “She deserves to be in jail, I mean all those guys.”

I suggest that perhaps she is the only politician who has been ballsy enough (or foolish, depending on one’s perspective) to opt for bribery via the cheque route instead of hard cash, whereupon he snorts, “See I don’t bend my head around this stuff too much…”

So why shouldn’t she get bail now the charges are framed, I enquire, whereupon he reluctantly allows that this may have been

done to satisfy mob fury. When pressed about how often he has greased a palm, he admits to a 70:30 ratio between fines and bribes.

Actually, I, well, I’m not so clued-up… Ok, put it this way, man, this is not one of those trick questions, right? Ok, I discuss this major-ly with my pals. We have intense discussions about politics: I’m like totally pissed off, who are these guys?... She deserves to be in jail, I mean all those guys

“But you’re right,” he muses, “we need to do more for ourselves, not just sit back and bitch about the system. I plan on voting next time around.”

I draw his attention to the fact that many of his peers proudly boasted on TV about having paid bribes to traffic policemen on their way to the Ramlila grounds for the anti-corruption rally.

“Yeah, I think we all got a bit sucked in by the slogans… coming to think of it this Jan Lokpal is bullshit, you can’t have a parallel government to run government because more red tape will create more opportunity for corruption. Basically, everyone got so caught up in Anna’s movement that they forgot to read his bill. I think we Indians at heart are totally hypocritical: we always look for a short-cut solution. Going for a rally or signing up on Facebook is much easier than sitting down and checking out issues.

In the North, they call it jugaad, here we call it adjust maadi, but it’s the same, we take the easy way out. Some people say, you have to make the best out of the cards you’ve been dealt. But this country has too many micro-issues which come in the way of finding solutions to larger problems. Like you want to have mines, you need to solve the local people’s issues or the Naxals will kick your ass. You want to start an SEZ, some farmer will kick up a fuss. It’s sad, this country has so much potential, we could be a superpower but for these micro-issues.”

“The one thing I regret the most is that we don’t have compulsory military recruitment in this country. I mean, both my grandfathers are from a service background, one in the army and the other in the air force. I’ve talked to my parents about it and they’re like, ‘things have changed now...’ Hello, what has changed? We’re still in a situation where we have hostile neighbours on both flanks, I feel the need for some kind of military training, we’ll become a more disciplined nation that way, not a bunch of whiners. All this ahimsa bullshit pisses me off big-time, man. Not happening.”

Jan Lokpal is bullshit, you can’t have a parallel government to run government because more red tape will create more opportunity for corruption. Basically, everyone got so caught up in Anna’s movement that they forgot to read his bill. I think we Indians at heart are totally hypocritical: Going for a rally or signing up on Facebook is much easier than sitting down and checking out issues

Now that we have solved India’s problems, we shift to more familiar ground.Moving on to women and relationships, what’s the story? “Y’know, I’ve always thought of myself as caring and sensitive, I’m not ashamed to cry, I think tears and laughter are two sides of an emotional coin, but I don’t know, with women, it’s tricky. I say this because, I know from experience that whether you miss out by a mile or an inch, you’ve still blown it, you’ve still missed out on getting it right.

“I had one really major relationship and if I had to do it all over again, there are so many things I’d do differently. I guess it’s finding the right balance between being a rock and a marshmallow.” Is he essentially monogamous, I wonder aloud; being a good-looking guy, how does he handle women hitting on him?

“Oh man, totally. I’m kind of old-fashioned that way. I know guys are supposed to be thrilled with conquests and shit, but I give and expect total commitment in my relationships. I mean, ok I know I lucked out in the gene pool, I’m not a bad-looking guy, I’m good at sports, I’m not dumb, so that combination puts me in a ‘desirable’ category, but I’m a one-woman man. Sometimes I’ve had my ex accuse me of fooling around and I’d be like, forget it, she’s just a friend with PDA (public display of affection) issues.” It’s bookshelf-as-a-test-of-character time, so I ask what makes Drew crack up?

“I trip on stand-up comedy. Robin Williams, C K Louis, Bill Bailey, Lee Evan and Cat Williams are my all-time favourites. I don’t get desi stand-up, I would rather have my toenails pulled than watch Great Indian Laughter Challenge or whatever.

“What I really love about guys like Lee

Evan or Robin Williams is how they can take the most mundane everyday stuff and turn it into gold, that takes genius.

And how does Drew keep his pecs and six-pack in place? “I gym four to five times a week, weight training, skipping the whole nine yards,” he grins.

The one thing I regret the most is that we don’t have compulsory military recruitment. I mean, both my grandfathers are from a service background. I’ve talked to my parents about it and they’re like, ‘things have changed now...’ Hello, what has changed? We’re still in a situation where we have hostile neighbours. I feel the need for some kind of military training, we’ll become a more disciplined nation that way, not a bunch of whiners

And he plays soccer for a club team on weekends where he reprises Lionel Messi’s role as striker. “I love soccer, I actually went to the US on a soccer scholarship where I trained kids for six months. It was tough being out of home and doing my own laundry and stuff but it taught me a lot.”

Before we get to his goals for life, Drew slips in almost as an aside, “Music is a major part of my life, metal in particular. I love Metallica, Megadeth, man, I feel so alive when I listen to them. The concert (when Metallica played at Bangalore Palace Grounds last month) was awesome.

“I mean, ok, I’ll listen to some house or electronic once in a way but I can’t take Bryan Adams.” And is he concerned about the matrix between metal and violence?

“That is just a bunch of psycho-babble bullshit,” he explodes. “People do shit because they want to, not because of some musical influence.”

Wow, I’m thinking, maybe that’s what Rahul Gandhi needs to pull crowds at a political rally: get Megadeth to open for him. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want? I rap, in conclusion.

“I’m in creative so someday, I would like to be up on stage at Cannes, picking up a Golden Lion for an incredible campaign about a school for slum children,” he muses.

“Until that happens, I’d settle for a car of my own and a better apartment.”