In the past, there was a Promise. Nothing specific or concrete, but an unspoken assumed promise of something more to life, something better. One stepped out of the mundane and the madness by smoking a cigarette or having a drink to connect quietly to that Promise.
That Promise seems to have disappeared. It has been erased from our lives, just as Nietzsche’s madman with the lantern accused the villagers of wiping away the horizon with a sponge. It is not that cigarettes or alcohol are no longer cool. It is that there is nowhere to escape to.
You won't believe: so I got my copy of the book, and with it came a tote with the cover on it. I took that out in the metro in Bangalore, and a woman chastised me for it! Haha I love the constant identity crisis that is this luru <3
Well people and youth in Punjab are deep in drugs. Perhaps it depends on social, economic, employment and political state where you are. Can we say their correlation with freedom and arts have tarnished? I would say so. I mean, if your newspaper is filled with colums of violent death by drugs at every page and every day, you see them as evil. At least I did, all of them.
When you read the of cases of alcohol consumption and their relationship with domestic violence and more, a literate person sees the reality. Drugs are not for creativity, they seem like torment wrapped in bottles, puffs and cigarette rolls. My father once said, If you confuse drugs with freedom, your concept of independence is revenge not self discovery.
as a 22 yo genz, i can definitely say this is so true the decline of smoking & alcohol in majority of genz groups is real.
i see my co workers (fellow gen z’s) grabbing a chilled diet coke, where back in college (2,3 years ago) there used to be sutta breaks after every lecture.
i barely read anything, but your articles are very good it just make me wait for the next one — keep it up anurag bhai 🫶🏽
How fascinating. Specifically what you said about smoking being a small performance that you are an artist- I've felt that a lot. Artist types, the kind of pretentious ones that are making an image of being a cynical, hazy artist, smoke for the image. Musicians too. Interesting about it being similar in India. Great post!
I'm still in college, so while I can't say that Alcohol consumption has decreased/increased, I can say that there is greater recognition of how it's not really a good thing to indulge in(health and lifestyle-wise). I'm a non-smoker, non-drinker (I like my suffering raw; escaping to such substances under emotional influence doesn't make sense to me) and I have had heated discussions about the sutta and daaru.
People are more in favour of "Drinking with Class", good quality drinking at a slow n enjoyed pace.
Drug problem persists though. I believe it's here to stay.
I thought that smoking was making a comeback in popular culture and was becoming trendy again. Happy to be proven wrong of course. While actual smoking habits are low, I was thinking about how much cigarettes/smoking are referred to across songs, music videos, viral reels, and memes. Maybe its just the corner of the internet that I currently inhabit. People are not smoking as much, but they sure are talking and posting about it. And since there's a downward trend in consumption, those who do smoke might actually think of their behaviour as more edgy (anything to pose yourself as the niche rather than the trope).
Being a genz it's true, weed is the new alcohol, in Blore drinking is being done occasionally, Sutta are permanent though in office, but weed has slowly become the cool thing from colleges to corporates
Unrelated, but the idea of smoking being cool reminds me of what my film prof said about noir: it almost seemed like noir films used to compete over who could come up with the most inventive way for the noir hero to hold a dangling cigarette.
I feel that this generation is more inclined towards smoking and alcohol compared to the previous one, at least in India. Broadly, I see two types of family patterns here:
1. Continuation pattern – If the previous generation was into smoking or drinking, the new generation often follows suit, even if not at the same intensity.
2. Shift pattern – If the previous generation wasn’t involved in smoking or drinking, the new generation is still getting drawn into it. The reasons range from greater peer influence and rising stress levels to a more comfortable lifestyle and higher exposurs
i think a lot of people are resorting to pot over alcohol for various reasons (cheaper when you share; socialising indoors than outdoors cause it requires a lot of performance to present yourself outside in today’s age; introspection over momentary bliss cause a lot of people have started smoking alone as well & the manner & speed in which we consume information these days, the need to understand oneself better is at an all time high; most young people are somewhat informed about the political climate these days and understand corruption on greater scales which doesnt give them the false assumption about good governance or to trust the govt when they say something’s bad for us, infact it’s quite the contrary, they may get that pot is not illegal only due to its ill effects but also the corruption it involves (i could be totally overestimating & being subjective here) + also how it’s so casually part of any content we consume (be it movies, songs, memes, influencers globally) and that it’s getting legalised in many places. When the only way you could blow off some steam in the super fast lifestyle we live is termed as counter productive, the question arises as to how much more is expected off of me when i’m already sucked in entirely by this world to merely survive and earn a living. It feels like slowing down & catching up to yourself when the capitalist world expects more productivity from you. I could be so wrong w all of this but this is what i understand from my circles.
You're so spot on! My commitment to being nonconformist still sometimes lures me to court death :) Sometimes I think that maybe Gen-Z today are less traumatized by their parents and somehow don't need to escape to taboo?! A shallow reading but I am somewhat curious about taboos and, consequently, parenting which also operates in this same sort of wellness culture.
I think our cultural upbringing has to do with a lot of this shift. In the sense that growing up in small towns (North East India), there wasn't much we could do to visibly express our teenage rebellion. Everything was hush hush and amidst friends (which wasn't completely non-judgmental as well). We were too far away from being influenced by the health concern wave that passed through major metro cities. I'm speaking from the perspective of a 24 year old GenZ. This silent rebellion of smoking or trying alcohol was the only way me and my friends could express how we won't be subdued into our parents' way of thinking. So yeah, when we moved away to Mumbai for education, a few years back, it was a touch of fresh air. We could actually but cigarettes right outside our campus and smoke it without expecting trouble. We could smoke in autos too and nobody would go out of their way to shame us. Weed and vapes are too out of our budget or too complicated to acquire unlike cigarettes. More than a habit, it's still a way of expressing that small town rebellion for me, regardless of the fact that I'm soon reaching the age where I too, will lie about trying to quit smoking and have cheat days. Lol. I enjoyed the essay a lot Anurag. Thank you.
Great piece. I haven’t been to those coffee rave parties, but they keep popping up on my YouTube channel and I can’t imagine anything lamer than ordering a Spanish latte and sitting facing a DJ in a tiny cafe. Covid has also had a big impact on the sobriety/glam wellness culture taking flight. We were inundated with videos of celebrities, influencers and their followers showing us their daily smoothie routine (a murky green drink with capsuled supplements).
In the past, there was a Promise. Nothing specific or concrete, but an unspoken assumed promise of something more to life, something better. One stepped out of the mundane and the madness by smoking a cigarette or having a drink to connect quietly to that Promise.
That Promise seems to have disappeared. It has been erased from our lives, just as Nietzsche’s madman with the lantern accused the villagers of wiping away the horizon with a sponge. It is not that cigarettes or alcohol are no longer cool. It is that there is nowhere to escape to.
Very interesting point
You won't believe: so I got my copy of the book, and with it came a tote with the cover on it. I took that out in the metro in Bangalore, and a woman chastised me for it! Haha I love the constant identity crisis that is this luru <3
Well people and youth in Punjab are deep in drugs. Perhaps it depends on social, economic, employment and political state where you are. Can we say their correlation with freedom and arts have tarnished? I would say so. I mean, if your newspaper is filled with colums of violent death by drugs at every page and every day, you see them as evil. At least I did, all of them.
When you read the of cases of alcohol consumption and their relationship with domestic violence and more, a literate person sees the reality. Drugs are not for creativity, they seem like torment wrapped in bottles, puffs and cigarette rolls. My father once said, If you confuse drugs with freedom, your concept of independence is revenge not self discovery.
as a 22 yo genz, i can definitely say this is so true the decline of smoking & alcohol in majority of genz groups is real.
i see my co workers (fellow gen z’s) grabbing a chilled diet coke, where back in college (2,3 years ago) there used to be sutta breaks after every lecture.
i barely read anything, but your articles are very good it just make me wait for the next one — keep it up anurag bhai 🫶🏽
How fascinating. Specifically what you said about smoking being a small performance that you are an artist- I've felt that a lot. Artist types, the kind of pretentious ones that are making an image of being a cynical, hazy artist, smoke for the image. Musicians too. Interesting about it being similar in India. Great post!
I'm still in college, so while I can't say that Alcohol consumption has decreased/increased, I can say that there is greater recognition of how it's not really a good thing to indulge in(health and lifestyle-wise). I'm a non-smoker, non-drinker (I like my suffering raw; escaping to such substances under emotional influence doesn't make sense to me) and I have had heated discussions about the sutta and daaru.
People are more in favour of "Drinking with Class", good quality drinking at a slow n enjoyed pace.
Drug problem persists though. I believe it's here to stay.
I thought that smoking was making a comeback in popular culture and was becoming trendy again. Happy to be proven wrong of course. While actual smoking habits are low, I was thinking about how much cigarettes/smoking are referred to across songs, music videos, viral reels, and memes. Maybe its just the corner of the internet that I currently inhabit. People are not smoking as much, but they sure are talking and posting about it. And since there's a downward trend in consumption, those who do smoke might actually think of their behaviour as more edgy (anything to pose yourself as the niche rather than the trope).
Being a genz it's true, weed is the new alcohol, in Blore drinking is being done occasionally, Sutta are permanent though in office, but weed has slowly become the cool thing from colleges to corporates
Unrelated, but the idea of smoking being cool reminds me of what my film prof said about noir: it almost seemed like noir films used to compete over who could come up with the most inventive way for the noir hero to hold a dangling cigarette.
I feel that this generation is more inclined towards smoking and alcohol compared to the previous one, at least in India. Broadly, I see two types of family patterns here:
1. Continuation pattern – If the previous generation was into smoking or drinking, the new generation often follows suit, even if not at the same intensity.
2. Shift pattern – If the previous generation wasn’t involved in smoking or drinking, the new generation is still getting drawn into it. The reasons range from greater peer influence and rising stress levels to a more comfortable lifestyle and higher exposurs
i think a lot of people are resorting to pot over alcohol for various reasons (cheaper when you share; socialising indoors than outdoors cause it requires a lot of performance to present yourself outside in today’s age; introspection over momentary bliss cause a lot of people have started smoking alone as well & the manner & speed in which we consume information these days, the need to understand oneself better is at an all time high; most young people are somewhat informed about the political climate these days and understand corruption on greater scales which doesnt give them the false assumption about good governance or to trust the govt when they say something’s bad for us, infact it’s quite the contrary, they may get that pot is not illegal only due to its ill effects but also the corruption it involves (i could be totally overestimating & being subjective here) + also how it’s so casually part of any content we consume (be it movies, songs, memes, influencers globally) and that it’s getting legalised in many places. When the only way you could blow off some steam in the super fast lifestyle we live is termed as counter productive, the question arises as to how much more is expected off of me when i’m already sucked in entirely by this world to merely survive and earn a living. It feels like slowing down & catching up to yourself when the capitalist world expects more productivity from you. I could be so wrong w all of this but this is what i understand from my circles.
You're so spot on! My commitment to being nonconformist still sometimes lures me to court death :) Sometimes I think that maybe Gen-Z today are less traumatized by their parents and somehow don't need to escape to taboo?! A shallow reading but I am somewhat curious about taboos and, consequently, parenting which also operates in this same sort of wellness culture.
Eager to read about your experience of meeting Sai Paranjpye!
I think our cultural upbringing has to do with a lot of this shift. In the sense that growing up in small towns (North East India), there wasn't much we could do to visibly express our teenage rebellion. Everything was hush hush and amidst friends (which wasn't completely non-judgmental as well). We were too far away from being influenced by the health concern wave that passed through major metro cities. I'm speaking from the perspective of a 24 year old GenZ. This silent rebellion of smoking or trying alcohol was the only way me and my friends could express how we won't be subdued into our parents' way of thinking. So yeah, when we moved away to Mumbai for education, a few years back, it was a touch of fresh air. We could actually but cigarettes right outside our campus and smoke it without expecting trouble. We could smoke in autos too and nobody would go out of their way to shame us. Weed and vapes are too out of our budget or too complicated to acquire unlike cigarettes. More than a habit, it's still a way of expressing that small town rebellion for me, regardless of the fact that I'm soon reaching the age where I too, will lie about trying to quit smoking and have cheat days. Lol. I enjoyed the essay a lot Anurag. Thank you.
Great piece. I haven’t been to those coffee rave parties, but they keep popping up on my YouTube channel and I can’t imagine anything lamer than ordering a Spanish latte and sitting facing a DJ in a tiny cafe. Covid has also had a big impact on the sobriety/glam wellness culture taking flight. We were inundated with videos of celebrities, influencers and their followers showing us their daily smoothie routine (a murky green drink with capsuled supplements).
buying beer and cigarettes asap to remedy this