Blog@GraceJunction

The young India is already behaving in a very different way than their parents. They are earning younger, and working in myriad “new age” professions e.g. dance and fitness instructors, radio and TV jockeys, adventure tourism, cooking, grooming, gaming, modeling, acting, counseling besides, of course, retail and IT and other emerging sectors. They are making good money too.

More and more of them are becoming millionaires and the age they reach there is coming down too. The IT sector especially is offering almost double the salary than any other stream and the growth too is about 20% per annum, which is again higher than any other stream. Every mother is now looking for a software professional for her daughter! These class, who were considered to be geeks and nerds and not exactly – the marriage material, are now the most sought after lot. Money, and big money at that, is causing major social and cultural shifts. (more…)

The news coming from the west is not very encouraging. With the sub-prime fallout, US economy is troubled, in fact reeling. The US Fed has cut interest rate once again by another 25bp to 2%. However, market in US is not responding to these attempts by the Fed and markets worldwide are worried by this trend. Prices of food and gas are rising. Crude is at an all time high with no sign of cessation. The situation can no longer be called just a case of recession, but probably the beginning of a depression. Industries across the board have seen negative growth and loss of profitability, with banks, brokerages and mortgage companies being the biggest losers with the realty market also going down hill.

But I was surprised to see a particular industrial segment showing unusual growth even in this slump. In contrast to the general negative economic trend, this industry registered a 63% growth in soft-wares and 46% in equipments! I am talking about the video-games industry (if at all I may call it that). I was curious and wanted to learn something about this segment though within a short while I understood that I was delving into something that I would hardly understand even fairly well. I mean, I was sure I would not perhaps completely understand the underlying psyche of a gamer because this population was perhaps living oblivious to the market realities.

It was then that I came across this young guy who looked like someone heavily into gaming. We met up at a common friend’s place.

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During my long break from the Soul Café, I took time to catch up with my friends and acquaintances online. I also heard a lot of good music on You Tube. I was really amazed by the variety of good music that was now available even in the Christian music field. Internet has changed many things. One field that has seriously benefited by the advent of the Internet is “music”.

Music industry used to be the monopoly of a few production houses and big labels, but it is no longer so. The cheap distribution that internet allows has made survival a basic issue even for the biggest banners. The developments in digital recording and more importantly in digital reproduction in the post-napster era have led to an explosion of creativity. Millions of amateurs have emerged who have contributed to all genre, sub genre and micro genre of music and most importantly these amateurs share their music online. Off late single song releases are gaining popularity over album releases. The motto is to make buying of music so affordable that people do not think about stealing it and rightly so. (more…)

My long sessions with Kumar and Rahul on a single day had been so heavy on me that I didn’t go back to the Soul Café for many weeks. I spent most of my evenings online catching up with friends and discussing with them on a range of topics, thanks to Orkut, and sometimes I was punching in for my blog, and at other times I was doing some reading and research of my own on the happenings around the world. Since I had procured an unlimited broadband connection, I could take the liberty of checking out even the various videos that had been uploaded on YouTube and some of the videos I saw during this time were startling. Man has surely come a long way ahead in technological terms.

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For those who came in late, here is a recap of what has transpired very recently at Soul Café. I was meeting up with my old friend after a very long time and during the course of it we discussed about the various recent trends among teenagers in India and as we were talking about it a youngster chanced upon our conversations and joined in. The conversation then went on to explore evolution and creation and then trying to understand a creator’s mind in allowing death, pain, suffering and sickness into his creation. All these took a lot of time and had taken a heavy toll on me and we took time out for dinner.

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For those who came in late, here is a recap of what has transpired very recently at Soul Café. My friend, Kumar, works in a premier market research agency and we were meeting after a very long time, and our conversations at the Soul Café happened to dwell on the modern trends among the teens, especially on the ‘skippies’. In the middle of this discussion, a seemingly well-read teen snooped into our talk. After a while, when my friend had left to finish off with some urgent commitments, this young man, Rahul, and I had a fairly long talk and it revolved mainly around evolution and creation. (more…)

I was meeting my friend who working with a premier market research agency, after a very long time. We discussed the case of ‘skippies’ and the discussion took some interesting twists. My friend interrupted the discussions to leave. He had to finish off his business engagements and he promised to return later in the evening to continue our talk. As he walked to the door, he walked past several ‘skippies’ inside the café, and he looked back at me and smiled. I was planning to leave when this young man, apparently having overheard our conversations came over to me to talk.
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Skippies is the market research term for young teens with earnings and (or) purchasing power, and there is no mistaking their influence in the buying decision anymore. And it is not just restricted to products that they buy for personal use. Whether it’s a car, a TV, breakfast cereal or gum, the young members in the family have a definite view on most purchase decisions.

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It was evening and I had to walk back home and rush to a meeting in the evening. However, the café owner held me back. I didn’t want to lose an opportunity to at least make a better acquaintance with him hoping that perhaps he would offer me a regular discount, whenever I came there in the future. He asked me about my vocation and why my apparent subjects were always youngsters. Now, he was the owner of the café and it had mostly youths frequenting it but yet, surprisingly, he expressed that they were the most difficult age group to understand. I gathered that he was possibly struggling with a troubled teen in his own household and bingo. When I asked him about it, he told me about his son, who according to him, was going through, a teenage crisis. He was not studying and was becoming progressively more rebellious with each passing day.

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As we walked down the road to the café, the young man with me started revealing more facts about his life. His father was an elder in the church and was a man of outstanding testimony. While he grew up, he always looked up to his father and proudly said to himself that one day he would become like his father.

This is the experience of most boys while they are still growing. Somehow I feel that most fathers have let down their kids. I mean, they have not kept up to their children’s expectations and should I frankly say, they have not kept up to God’s expectations in what they teach, in the way they live, in their love, their faith, and their purity. I am not being judgmental. I include myself in this ineffective league of fathers, who have not kept up to the standards as God expects all fathers to keep. The result: a generation of renegade and drifting youngsters, who lack proper role models to look up to or emulate.

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