The Butterfly Generation - Palash Mehrotra

Half of India’s population is under the age of 25. In 2020, the average person in India will be only 29 years old, compared with 48 in Japan, 45 in Western Europe and 37 in China and the United States.

Palash Krishna Mehrotra paints a compelling portrait of young urban Indians today. His memories and experiences of a bygone socialist era are contrasted with the sights and sounds of a contemporary Americaized india. The book, a no-holds-barred journey through the world’s youngest nation, tells in vivid kaleidoscopic detail the story of one man and one generation. How do Indians in the age group of 25 to 35 reconcile their disparate worlds? How does the author himself reconcile them?

Part memoir, part travelogue, part commentary, The Butterfly Generation is the first book about New India to be written from an insider’s perspective. Some of the stories it tells are of a doomed call centre worker, a drug dealer on the make, an airline pilot, Versova’s scriptwriters, watching Doordarshan in the eighties, the coming of MTV, the rise of heavy metal bands, the Gay Pride March, Valentine’s day, ragging in Indian hostels, McJobs, the single life.

Old enough to remember the steam train but young enough to appreciate broadband, free to flirt with the West and take on their dreams, The Butterfly Generation flits back and forth between Hindi and English, Bollywood and Hollywood, the little black dress and the six-yard sari.