Gen X has spoken

There was a time when the Beatles sang 8220;Money can8217;t buy me love8221; to universal acclaim. If you wanted to be trendy, money was ...

There was a time when the Beatles sang 8220;Money can8217;t buy me love8221; to universal acclaim. If you wanted to be trendy, money was a strict no-no. If you wanted to be sexy, you donned dirty blue jeans and sported unkempt mops. But that, it seems, was a long, long, long time ago. India8217;s youth have just signalled that wealth creation is a hip, hep and happening activity, something that has their full and total approval. Of all the Good and Great amidst them, they have just voted in as the MTV Icon of the Year 8212; not Sachin Tendulkar, not Shahrukh Khan, not veggie/animal lover Maneka Gandhi, not even the ever youthful A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and the ever eloquent Atal Bihari Vajpayee 8212; but Anil Ambani, corporate czar.

In case you imagine this is some kind of a MTV Bakra prank, think again 8212; it is the result of a proper opinion poll commissioned by the 24-hour music channel in eight Indian cities. Youthful approval is, of course, a notoriously fickle phenomenon. This is not quite what Max Weber had in mind when he wrote about the three ideal kinds of authority 8212; the traditional, the legal and the charismatic 8212; that inspire the masses. What we have here, instead, is a combo of instant recall and something that goes by the holdall, if ephemeral, term 8220;sex appeal8221;. But it nevertheless is a distinct and interesting trend, that has been in the making for quite some time now, if we went by indices like our burgeoning shopping malls and the box-office success of films like Dil Chahta Hai, which took an unalloyed and unapologetic pleasure in all things bright and wealth-generating.

Call them Manmohan8217;s Children, if you wish, but this is a generation that has been shaped by a decade of globalisation and economic reform. As Icon Ambani himself pointed out, these kids who are smart enough to keep ahead of the curve have now let it be known that wealth creation is no longer a bad word, no longer a pursuit that the stereotyped, paunchy 8220;sethji8221; of yore followed with the world pouring its scorn on him, but something that is eminently worthy of respect, even celebration.