The Butterfly Generation

Palash Krishna Mehrotra

ISBN 10: 8129117584 / ISBN 13: 9788129117588

Published by Rupa Pub, 2012

About this Item

Palash Krishna Mehrotra in The Butterfly Generation paints a compelling portrait of young urban Indians today wherein the memories and experiences of a bygone socialist era are contrasted with the sights and sounds of a contemporary Americanized India Part memoir part travelogue part commentary The Butterfly Generation is the first book about this New India written from an insider?s perspective Half of India?s population is under the age of 25 and by 2020 the average Indian will be only 29 years old and it is their stories that this books tells The stories include that of a doomed call centre worker a drug dealer on the make an airline pilot Versova scriptwriters watching Doordarshan in the eighties discovering pop music on short wave radio the coming of MTV the rise of heavy metal bands the Gay Pride March Valentine?s Day ragging in Indian hostels McJobs and the single life The Butterfly Generation swings back and forth between Hindi and English Bollywood and Hollywood the little black dress and the six yard sari 272 pp.

Seller Inventory # 101512

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Butterfly Generation
• Publisher: Rupa Pub
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8129117584
• ISBN 13: 9788129117588
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This is a generation that finds several things about the family, religion and community stifling or plain silly. It wants to wipe the slate clean, but more importantly, its using art to strike back at the past and create a new future for itself. These art forms stand-up comedy, the rock song, the music video might have their origins in the West, but in a globalised world, knotted together by the World Wide Web, history is erased in an instant. What matters more is the speed at which ideas travel, are adapted to local purposes, put to work.

The old walls are crumbling, and for the first time new ones are not taking their place. In China, globalisations sharp edge is blunted by censorship. For the inward-looking West, globalisation is more of a threat than an exciting new force our jobs are being taken away. But an unfettered and liberal India is breathlessly absorbing everything, all the influences the world has to offer. Young India is in gobble mode. The Butterfly Generation.

About the Author

Palash Krishna Mehrotra was born in Bombay in 1975. He was educated at St Stephen???s College, Delhi, the Delhi School of Economics, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read for a PPE.

He is the editor of Recess: The Penguin Book of Schooldays and the author of Eunuch Park: 15 Stories of Love and Destruction. He writes a fortnightly column for Mail Today, and is Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone India.

He lives in New Delhi and Dehradun.