JASMEET KAUR

Hearing out Gen Z. My father's caretaker is a 24 year old guy. Hails from Kanpur. He has done BSc Nursing and we have hired him through an agency that provides elder-care professionals at home. Spends 12 hours at our home (8 am to 8 pm), rarely takes a leave. A very diligent guy, soft-spoken, well-read (keeps reading books from my collection) and speaks pretty fluent English. On the morning of 20th July, he calls up and says he is not feeling well. On 21st he came, was limping a bit. Did not share what happened. Yesterday he shared with dad that he told a lie. On 20th he had gone to Jantar-Mantar for supporting the students' protest and was hit by the police truncheon during lathi-charge. While running, lost his shoe and twisted his ankle. Last night when I went home and was having dinner, dad told me about this. Today morning when he came I talked to him and realized what 'generation(al) gap' means. While talking to him I realized, he was 9-10 when Anna Andolan happened. He was 10-11 when Arvind Kejriwal became the CM for the first time. He was 11-12 when BJP formed the government in 2014. The NEET aspirants are even younger than him. They were toddlers 12 years ago. Some of the things we have lived through, are alien to him. All he has seen since he started experiencing the world is the current government and Modi as the PM. So for him, everything that he and his generation is been through in last 7-8 years since he 'grew up' - the responsibility lies with the current government. He mentioned that there are 1000s of youngsters who have travelled from as far as Lucknow and Varanasi for these protests. Again on being asked why? Why did he and his friends join the protest? Why these students have come so far to join the protests? NEET exam leak was the last thing on his mind. The reasons he gave were - everything becoming expensive and unaffordable, no job opportunities, government's and police's high-headedness, corruption everywhere - and then went on to mention falling bridges, broken roads, no footpaths, stray dogs and cattle all around and dumps of garbage everywhere. He called ethanol-blending a scam. I felt he was just waiting to burst out everything that's piled up in his mind. Glad that heard him out. Then I realized that there are millions like him and these protests are not just about the NEET exam leak. These are the piled up frustrations finding a way out.