Grow Up,SRK and Co

But what hurt more was the fact that my favourite hero,a delicious 40-something superstar,was playing at being a young person. Dressed in low-hung,quasi-baggy jeans,Converse-type sneakers and that fashion faux pas of spiked hair,India’s superstar,who can afford the best stylists in the country,looked like one of the great unwashed Lokhandwala boys. (For those who don’t live in Mumbai,Lokhandwala is a suburb where wannabe television stars live. It also has a lot of young people sporting coffee moustaches because their facial hair is yet to make an appearance.)

Now here is a man who has gotten better looking with age — and fitter. His six-pack is legendary. He is such a big star that he plays himself in his films and gets away with it. Yet,a car company reduced Shah Rukh Khan to parody.

Tragically,this Peter Pan complex has become a peculiar kind of Indian protocol. Our stars routinely romance women 20 years younger. The heroines end up following this code by refusing to age. When their time comes,they romance heroes a decade younger. I am not offended by May-December love stories. Neither does the desire to look young bother me. Heck,with all the lotions,potions and Botox on offer,it is easy to look forever frozen in time. What riles me is the choice of role model. Are we so bereft of ideas that we actually want to model ourselves on 20-somethings? There was a time when young people wanted to look older than their age. It was seen as a sign of cool — and of great taste. So when did it become de rigueur to do the opposite? Take a look at actor Aamir Khan. He started his career in 1988 with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak as a fresh graduate; in 1991,he played a boy out of college on his first job in Dil Chahta Hai. And most recently,in 3 Idiots (2009),Aamir plays (what else) a college student.

Let’s be frank here. The young as a species are singularly unattractive; they are incredibly dull because they are unfinished products. They lack that critical quality called hindsight and,as a result,behave with utter lack of class. How else can you explain Britney Spears and gang flashing private parts in public? Or closer home,the Lokhandwala boys,who insist on trotting out their hairy butt cleavage every time they bend down to tie their laces. Surely,they would have heard of belts. I mean,like dude,haven’t they been around since the cavemen?

I call the 20s the rude years. Young people are always making up,breaking up. Falling in love,falling out of love. Getting married,getting divorced. Having babies. Chasing their dreams. It is as if their bucket list is on fast forward and the world isn’t spinning fast enough for them. And,yes,what about the not-so-charming inability to hold a drink? I don’t have enough fingers on my hand to count the drink-driving accidents we’ve been subjected to by GenNext. I don’t think I have to even suggest that it is impolite to plough down unsuspecting people sleeping on sidewalks/ going for a morning constitutional/ crossing the street.

Isn’t it odd that you can get a trainer for your pet,but that there are no guides and no rules,no professionals who can stop obnoxious young persons from talking on cellphones while chewing their food? It seems that youth is a social epidemic that only age can cure. But if older people start to regress,we will end up in an endless loop of the asinine.

One of the first observations travel writer Paul Theroux made when he retraced the journey he had undertaken 30 years ago in The Great Railway Bazaar is how much better life is with several decades under your belt. I quote from Ghost Train To The Eastern Star,“A great satisfaction in growing old — one of many — is assuming the role of a witness to the wobbling of the world and seeing irreversible changes. The downside,besides the tedium of listening to the delusions of the young ….” I take the liberty of cutting Theroux short because I know how much is too much. Unlike the gum-chewing,acne-ridden,age-challenged person sitting next to me at Barista.

tothemannerborn@expressindia.com