Last month, or maybe the month before that, this detail doesn't matter as much, I stumbled upon a very good collection of videos on YouTube. The playlist is titled 'Wagle Ki Duniya' and is based on the works of the great cartoonist RK Laxman. I don't think RK Laxman is a name that needs any sort of introduction. In fact, any such attempt would never do justice to his breadth of work or how his imagination became a part of the average Indian's life. One could argue that he isn't relevant anymore, and they wouldn't be lying. I doubt most young people would even recall that name or even have the foggiest clue about his body of work, or simply who he was. This is one complaint I have with Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
(One thing that I need to add here is that I believe that the definition(by year) of Gen Z should be shifted to anyone born after 2002 in India. In many ways than one, people born between 1997 and 2002 lived the same life as anyone born in, say, 1993 or 1995. The big cities would be an exception, but as it happens, in most cases, they always are. So when I write Gen Z, it means anyone born after 2002.)
Coming back to my primary grumble. A lot of these people, some I know personally, are living a life significantly detached from their own history, culture and society. Their humour is American. It would have been so much better if it had been British. The wanna-be accent they try to mimic is the one used by African-Americans, and they fail hilariously at that. The way they write English is messed up, and I can't even understand all the abbreviations they used. What sense does one make of a sentence like 'umm lkr sybau fam what even is chhole bhature omg get this matcha fr it slaps lowkey smh'?
Did a drunk cat stumble across your bloody keyboard? Also, none of their references are local. While they are physically in India, their own persona is that of someone living in New York City or Los Angeles.
I'm no Shakespeare or TS Elliot or, Hemingway or Vikram Seth myself. But I try, to my best knowledge, not to butcher a language based on the latest rapper/hip-hop artist enjoying his 15-minutes-of-fame by mumbling and gargling the words in his mouth. This also happens to be the most mollycoddled generation with helicopter parents. My belief is that while parents should strive to provide the best for their children, insulating them from the realities of the world after a certain age only shifts their obnoxiousness on unsuspecting strangers minding their own business. Also, these kids then grow upto be adults who chase idealism and fall prey to all sorts of new-age self-diagnosable maladies when they realise that the real world is a completely different, pragmatic and unforgiving. Some of them became terrible hostel mates, too.
The more I try to become like these guys, the more I come to the conclusion that I will never understand my generation at all. I'm not cutout for the kind of lives they live, the silly little innuendos they consider humour or how comedy means a string of expletives. I am sorry I can't dress like I got my clothes by disrobing a homeless person, and neither can I have a cauliflower as the inspiration for my hairstyle. (To be honest, in a few years, I will have a bald head, so the latter could just have a tinge of jealousy!)
Again, I'm no Greek God myself, nor have I been sculpted by Michelangelo; it's just that I cannot connect with these guys despite my many attempts at that. It feels superficial and fake to me.
That being said, I don't take away their right to dress and speak and laugh in a way that feels right for them. If that's the skin they feel comfortable in, I do not wish to flay them for this. I have just voiced my view of the whole thing. There are things I admire about them, too. That's for another day.
This is the precise reason why I, to seek solace, indulge myself in sitcoms or shows from the last century. That world, a part of which seeped into the early years of the 21st century, seems more relatable and, in some ways, real and uncontrived. Those shows are part of digital media, and digital media is one large prop, but regardless of that, they seem more connected to the world I recognised and cherished. I am no sucker for the past or some hopeless nostalgia junkie. It's just that familiarity is my preference over the unpredictability of the world I see around me. The capricious and mercurial 'present' with its erratic moods, seems overwhelming at times and completely strange on other occasions. That's when these old things come to the rescue.
Wagle Ki Duniya, both literally and metaphorically, is an escape from this age of information onslaught. The characters are similar, and if you look closely, you'll see your family in Mr Wagle's Family. A simple, light-hearted and relatable sitcom. Wagle Ki Duniya feels somewhat less pretentious, and equally conniving(if not less). However, the comfort comes from the familiar. This is about the sitcom and the Wagle's world, both. You'll find the link below. Therefore, Wagle Ki Duniya is about the 'Duniya' we lived, even if for a brief moment, in the past.
My repeated watching of the Feluda telefilms and the old Feluda films also points to this.
I think the rant is enough for today. For the rest of the day, I'll find something else to be mad about ;)
Sitcom: Wagle Ki Duniya
Song: Raag Khamaj by Pt Ravi Shankar
Reading: The Fate of Man by Mikhail Sholokhov
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Wagle Ki Duniya
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thanks for reminding me about Wagle ki Duniya, Aditya. And The Fate of a Man, what a book! I keep going back to it once a decade. Funnily, the Bengali translation moved me more than the English. And in that context, don't worry about GenZ and whatever: they will live to rue their superficiality. If you compare them with the protagonist in The Fate..., you will realize that their real tragedy is that their lives have been too easy, too comfortable, too safe, too distracted, and so, utterly empty. I wrote, sadly, long ago that 'perhaps humanity needs an occasional Auschwitz or Hiroshima to sober up'! But, and here is the silver lining, you are yourself proof that exceptions exist, and I happen to know many more.
ReplyDeleteI encountered the Hindi translation first as well, sir, and found it equally moving, done with honesty and sincerity. My early tryst with Russian writers such as Chekhov, Sholokhov, Turgenev, Gorky, and Gogol was through Hindi translations. Our country’s early tango with the Soviet Union likely made this possible.
DeleteIt was much later, when I learned to use the internet properly rather than spending endless hours on Angry Birds, that I turned to the English versions. Like a shrine of literature, I return to these works at regular intervals.
I also share your view on Hiroshima, sir. While I am against people dying in wars, societies do tend to get cocky with their freedom. And since time is cyclical, it may not be long before history repeats itself.