Twilight Zoners

We are the Twilight Zoners - the darkest before dawn, the fading before the dark. When we were born, the swinging 60s and its flowery powers had passed us by, the world no longer had time for block prints and ganja nights. The Beatles had broken up and Kennedy was dead - the world grieved.
When we were crawling, the world was seething with revolution - towns were painted a fiery "red", feudalism was brought to its knees, barriers were 'caste' down. The Emergency came and went - fear dominated society, we spoke our first words. Nice neighbourhood girls "eloped" with the neighbourhood chaiwallah to much scandal. The flavour was Communist, the mood pugilistic.
We were growing. Television was an extravagance, saving was a national hobby. Travel was second-class, holidays were in the "native", and people who went beyond the seas, sailed in the hope of a Green Card and more than one brand of soap. Doordarshan brought home grainy cricket matches and Hindi commentary, Wimbledon we saw from the Round of 16, Formula 1 not at all. Mandal was the bugbear, the excuse to study here and work elsewhere. Computers were complicated calculators. Maruti was the luxury car of the decade. Jobs were few, careers unheard of.
Foreign exchange reserves they said. Rupee convertibility we heard. Full, partial, people clamoured. We were the teenagers. Instead of freeing others through crude bombs or freeing ourselves through yoga and ganja, we discovered the pleasures of the couch. The remote was our newest toy, the supermarket shelves the unconquered frontier. Computers exploded,from exporting spices, we now exported software and the engineers to write them. Mobile phones were large, clumsy devices we aspired to use...someday.
We struggled with liberalisation. It conflicted with all our upbringing - compete? how? Work 24x7, what was that? Use and Throw?!! Spend?!!! No way!!! Our collective middle-class conscience saw wealth beyond comprehension. We were graduates. India had produced billionaires from common, everyday people. Cousins who worked in IT, owned 2 houses, 3 cars and of course a Green Card.
We are working, India is the place to be, the land of opportunity. The cousins are coming back, to gated communities of course. We have travelled the world, taken Indian cuisine along with us. The world was coming here, every brand wants a piece of India. We can't understand it. We spend, a lot. We are trying to be entrepreneurial, we cant understand 20-somethings with their own restaurant or company, neither do we dig a "gap" year.
The kids are more conversant with the world, holidays are no longer Indian, education is no longer a prerequisite for success. Being in-your-face is good. Sex and dating are not taboo...maybe not quite. We are middle-aged. We gym to keep the weight down. We compete for promotions. We have hypertension. We criticise the government. We are indifferent to our surroundings. We worry about money. We want the "best" for our kids - no matter what they want. We are the EMI people, living a king-sized life...on loan.
We look forward to tomorrow, all the while feeling nostalgic for the past. We know Facebook, but cant understand what the fuss is all about. We love You-Tube, to watch reruns of Hum Log and "Ek titli" cartoons. We are terrified of the recession, yet we talk of "giving it all up" to chase a dream. We are the nothing generation, used to protectionism, advocates of the free market. Nobody woos us - GenX & GenY are attractive, the older Gens have the money.
We are caught in our web of constraints, mostly in the mind. We were the deepest dark, before the end of drudgery. We are the fading, of all things simple (if ever they were). We are the Twilight Zoners.
P.S: Rajni suggested the name, during a discussion...thanks to her for setting it off.