Its great to see appreciation for my Youth Futures series at the Bharateeya Blog Mela. 

I’ve been thinking of ways to extend and facilitate the ‘conversations’ i’m having with some interesting people (a few youngsters in India among others) on Youth, through my blog.  At the zonkboard on my blog, comments at my posts, on IM, and through more conventional email and telephone.  Some of the comments on my earlier posts are worth bringing up here, as an example of how these conversations are evolving …

Two short excerpts from my post :

"Get a bunch of eight upper income group youngsters together in a group .. start a conversation on trends ... you will usually find seven (if not all eight) voices trying to outshout the other on why 'i'm the coolest' .... Superficial, materialistic, 'wannabe's', expedient, consumeristic ... these are some of the perceptions and misconceptions one could take away.  But scratch deeper - go to their homes, hang-out with them for a while, look at their private space - their rooms, their slambooks, their collections.  Listen to their deeper thoughts and visions ... and you might be quite surprised at the different story unveiled."   

Some reactions :

"Its all about appearances! In most of the cases, the materialistic attitude is just a veneer. Scratch the surface and as you've rightly said, the reality is quite different. Intelligent, articulate youth of today pull on a garb of oh-so-cool attitude that turns them into shallow one-dimensional individuals who compete on irrelevant things. But then, this attitude also makes the youth of today much more ambitious. They are really go-getters as compared to the same demographic segment, say, 10-15 years ago." Sameer

"hey dina, those are great photos! although i dont think it was your intention but it reminds me of this great book (forgetting the name) of kids photographed in their room. i guess my response to your post would be to question your separation of superficial and authentic... i dont believe in this sort of paradigm - these kids are participating in a culture system, their "superficial" decisions are symbolic constructions used by their peers to access something about their identity. i think you find this at all levels. i wouldn't call this superficial, its real! or well, maybe deeply superficial... do you come at this topic from a marketing background? didn't get a chance to read your entire blog yet!" zak

"Zak ... i couldn't agree with you more when you say, and say so well ... "i don’t believe in this sort of paradigm - these kids are participating in a culture system, their "superficial" decisions are symbolic constructions used by their peers to access something about their identity". At one level, its just that we often interpret these symbolic constructs as "superficial" and not often enough, bother to really ‘sense’ the underlying value. At another level, i feel we often fail to recognise that there may be a difference between what they ‘say’ (driven more by the need for peer approval) and what they ‘do’ ......."

Then the conversation moves to one on Youth Identities with this ....

"Go to their homes, check out their music collection … you’ll more often than not see a different story." I know of people who decry the downfall of 'real' music with the emergence of artistes(??) like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera... but stock up their CDs because these artistes are the flavour of the moment. They live two lives. One for themselves and one for their peers! "

And this ....

Thinking thoughts aloud here :

1. I'd like to continue these conversations, and encourage more between readers.  For the time being i'm experimenting with this blogspace. Would love to hear more stories, anecdotes, experiences and opinions through the comments and zonkboard tools.  I'm on the look-out for more interactive tools !

2. It maybe interesting to think of a dedicated space for encouraging such youth encounters and encouraging more ‘youth speak’. Not sure about the where's and how-to's yet - blogspace, wiki, portal ?  Yet i'm convinced that it would make a fantastic space for research. 

Meanwhile, i enjoy this Serious Play ...