<img style="float: left;" src="http://origin.mid-day.com/images/2024/apr/Rahul-op_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Da Cunha" width="200" height="69" />Natasha aka Nats, my Gen Z neighbour, was returning from a dusk to dawn party, as I was coming in from a dawn attempt at exercise.
&ldquo;Sup yo, Rahul bruh?&rdquo; Nats chirped, jumping out of the driver&rsquo;s seat.
&ldquo;So dear Nats, I can see you&rsquo;re making full use of turning eighteen, driving&hellip; uhm&hellip; clearly you&rsquo;ve had a few.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Yeah dude, more than a few (non-stop giggles + two eye rolls).
&ldquo;And soon, this is will also be your first election, wow drinking, driving and voting... it&rsquo;s nice that you&rsquo;ll even be voting now, how does it feel, deciding who your preferred candidate is?&rdquo; I asked quite excited.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I recall vividly my first voting&hellip; back in 1980!&rdquo;&nbsp;
Nats was unusually subdued at this question.
&ldquo;Are you seeking to spoil my &lsquo;high&rsquo;, Rahul bruh?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Not trying to spoil anything&hellip;&rdquo; I began.
&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t enlisted to vote,&rdquo; she said sullenly, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;m not planning to&mdash;in any case, even if I did vote, it would have to be in Hoshiarpur, Punjab and I&rsquo;m not planning a trip!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; I asked aghast, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re much too young to be so cynical and too energetic to be so inertia filled.&rdquo;
&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the point of voting&hellip; what difference will it make, bruh tell me?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Listen, every vote&hellip;,&rdquo; I began.
&lsquo;Dude, yeah yeah, I know, every vote counts, that&rsquo;s not a good enough reason.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Look if you kids don&rsquo;t speak up, keep your faces buried in your phones&hellip; then you are truly Gen Zzzzz&hellip; the fast-asleep generation, complain complain complain&hellip; and when the time comes to makes a difference, you&rsquo;re nowhere on the horizon. Why&rsquo;s there no FOMO when it comes to voting, Natasha? Why no &lsquo;Fear Of Missing Out&rsquo;?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Dude the country&rsquo;s going to shit. What am I going to do to stop the process, man? We&rsquo;re run by a country of uncles&hellip; and even the younger politicians behave like uncles. I&rsquo;m done with men standing in front of mics&hellip; pointing their index fingers at me, promising me development, and change&hellip; the city filled with giant cut outs of smiling men with dyed hair. Man, these are the same men who promise me care&nbsp; and safety.
Every day we hear about women being gang-raped in the back of moving cars, I&rsquo;m done with promises that aren&rsquo;t being kept! Look bruh, these research dudes keep throwing in our faces that we, young people, constitute half the population&hellip; 50 per cent of India&rsquo;s population is below 25&hellip; where am I being addressed? What&rsquo;s the narrative bruh? Tell me, tell me how &lsquo;woke&rsquo; are all these uncles to what we need&hellip; wagging their fingers at us. And if you think this is some &lsquo;townie&rsquo; privileged kid like me talking, so many of my friends in Hoshiarpur, dude they can&rsquo;t get jobs&hellip; you wanna address me, then get my&nbsp; generation employed!
Bruh, you know more than anyone else, that ignoring us, talking down to us, condescension, won&rsquo;t cut it&mdash;dude, what&rsquo;s the moral fiber of this country that you feel so patriotic about, dark Draconian forces, unleashing a reign of terror against their opponents. Dudes don&rsquo;t you want a level playing field, I mean how scared are you?&nbsp;
Our &lsquo;men in charge&rsquo;&hellip; always on a stage, mouthing off against everyone else&hellip;&rdquo;
Nats paused for a second while the steam coming out of her ears, abated. She then continued.&nbsp;
&ldquo;There are no good guys and bad guys... there are indifferent guys. Everyone&rsquo;s an uncle lecturing me in a dialect I don&rsquo;t understand, unsmiling, pedantic, patronizing&mdash;all our lives, we&rsquo;ve had older people who have no clue how to address younger people, we are a different generation, dude, very different from you guys when you were younger. We won&rsquo;t stand for moralising shit, or else we&rsquo;ll just walk away!&rdquo; Frankly I think I&rsquo;m just gonna opt for a NOTA!&rdquo; Nats said.
&lsquo;Wow&hellip; not bad&hellip; that&rsquo;s an option, when you choose NOTA&hellip; &lsquo;None Of The Above&rsquo; is an option, Nats,&rdquo; I said optimistically.
&ldquo;No bruh. NOTA isn&rsquo;t &lsquo;None Of The Above&rsquo;. NOTA spells No thanks!&rdquo; Nats concluded, as she walked away.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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“Sup yo, Rahul bruh?” Nats chirped, jumping out of the driver’s seat.

Nats and adult suffrage

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Nats and adult suffrage

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