youth vs Youthful

In the Mahabharata King Yayati swapped his old age with the youth of his son Bharat and enjoyed his youth for cool 100 years. Epics are full of instances of how the elders time and again gate crashed into the life of younger generation because of their own selfish enjoyment. Pitamaha Vishma was left stranded for life in the marriage market because of his father’s fatal attraction of a fisher woman, Lord Ram wandered around in wilderness best years of his post married life because of his dad’s faux passé with another young woman. Today when the elderly generation is again making an extra effort to be youthful and merge in the world of youth it may be an interesting idea to study how youth of today are coping up with this intrusion and are trying to differentiate themselves from the youthful old.
How are they different from the senior youth; what ritual, trend, culture they follow to preserve the rightful, youthful stamp of their own community? What strategies they imbibe to put this adventurous old lot in their rightful place? The answer to these questions has more than academic interest especially for the marketers who want to cater to a specific segment of youth through their products
One simple formula of showing more youthfulness is to run extra yard on some trend and raise the bar. Fashion and look is one visible differentiator of the youth community. And face is the mirror. And hair is the primary zone of creating novelty and variety. No wonder hair color, hair styles are doing overtime in the youth zone. Experts giving multi expressions to crowning glory of the young generation; along with traditional variations of shortcut ,long cut, bald, crew are hundred other variations of half bald , curl, half curl, straightened , spiky , sleepy , wavy variety. The world is your palette chose any wonky variety and you look cool. A new wave of beautification has lashed into hitherto restricted world of male grooming. Aamir in Gajni showed even scar can be converted into style. Bit and pieces of beards create interesting frescoes on the faces of male through innovative latitudinal and longitudinal shapes of beards and whiskers. In unisex saloons and beauty parlors young boys and girls are seen exchanging beauty and waxing tips. A whole range of male toiletries have made their appearance in the beauty world. Gels moose, fairness cream.
Displays of slim supple, packful bodies become the bedrock of fashion and youth. Bare body, see-through shirts, knots of ties around naked necks , colorful tattoos leaping out of the skimpy coverings of inner wears-all seem to celebrate a new canvas of young skin. Youth shows. Male body is shouting for attention across media be it glamorous bathing scene of Sharukh from the depths of a bath tub in the Lux commercial or the mirror image of the fairness cream smeared dude in Emami fairness cream ad or the peeping derriere of John in Dostana. As 50 plus heroes and other aged silver screen idols start challenging the youth with sculpted body youth value add their appearance with elaborate tattoos and painful body pierce. The idea as if is to tell the world that Mard ho to aisa. The challenge is more daring in dress codes-low raised jeans demanding full body waxing, straps of bra complementing the off shoulder top briefs and bikinis showcasing the youthful excess. Steamy scenes and intimate body contacts are almost a ritual of all brand communications targeting to the youth. Perfumes ,deodorants, even mundane toothpaste ads are replete with images of high voltage sensuality; youth getting intimate in all conceivable and inconceivable places-- on bikes, inside lifts, around revolving glass doors of shopping arcades. Ten years back Humara Bajaj ad displayed Indian restraint as hugging couples separated themselves at the sight of an elderly person today the woman indulged in love bite on the back of a speeding bike in full public view shocking the traditional sensibilities.
Extremity revels in the growing popularity of TV programmes on extreme sports and reality shows. Fear Factor when it first appeared a couple of years ago had a lukewarm response but Khatron ka khilari is gaining in popularity year by year pushing the boundaries in dare devilry. Protagonists are no stuntmen but girls and some of them are popular actresses of hitherto sob serials of saas & bahu . Till yesterday they all screamed at the sight of a cockroach today they are sleeping with bagful of creepy crawlies. The question is how long this superficial differentiation sustains itself. Considering that the elderly are increasingly becoming part of these shows the boundaries will again blur. The American reality shows like Fear Factor and I Am a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, have already quite a few senior adults. Rocky Sylvester Stallone still wants to rock on the boxing arena.
One way of countering these advances is to treat these efforts as childish and laugh at them indulgently as the NRI son in MasterCard ad laughs at the childish mirth of his parents at Disney Land or shrugging at the sight of a dadji dancing to glory in a chewing gum ad; The close encounter where the youth and youthful are negotiating each other on the platform of fatal attraction are still painted with smoke and mystery. In Dil chahata hai the relation between young man and middle aged women was more in the mind and remained inconclusive. In Nishsabd Amitabh finally came out of his infatuation for the teen age girl when his daughter put her foot down. In the Virgin Mobile commercial the teen aged boy got into mock flirting with attractive Dimple aunty more to buy pass her veto to meet her daughter and to take her to a movie before impending exam time.
Sexual advances and tendencies of youthful old are still subjects of fun and prank. Young boys made a mockery of middle aged Mr Mahalingam in another Virgin Mobile ad as they impersonated the role of a phirang telephone sex provider. There is a fresh galore of dada, dadi hugging, doing Namaste and touching fee, following religious rituals in the world of youth as reflected in the entertainment and mass communication arena be it in a TVC, film, serial or a soap.

In India people are still defined by not what they are but what role they play. It is a reality even the glamour world accepts .In Dus ka Dum Salman Khan tells his teen age fan, who had a crush on him, that she could well be his daughter’s age had he got married in time. Parenthood still is such an all encompassing high pressure role that everything else gets swept out in front of it. Media is continuously beaming this message and getting popularity. Pati Patni aur woh is more than soap; it is a modern day crash course in parenthood for young couples who almost are made to go through a workshop of how to handle a baby, tackle a toddler, manage a brat, adjust to a teenager and accommodate elders. One wonders why a film like Paa is being released at this juncture. Are these sheer co incidences or the reflections of a traditional society trying to correct and reset the age old equation between youth and old youthful unsettled by the forces of unbridled consumption culture?