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'Attitude' sits lightly on young shoulders

New Year parties in town saw a whole lot of city youngsters living it up. PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA found that they all had an `attitude'. A cool and clear attitude towards studies, jobs, family and relationships, is their trademark. But just what is `attitude'?

THE PLACE was happening... . It was great going. Past midnight with the New Year just born, people were dancing in sheer joy of a hopefully bright and prosperous New Year. This was the scene in a number of clubs, hotels and private parties, which rocked the city on the last day of last year. But if the average age of the revellers was to be considered it was in the twenties.

Kochi is descended upon by a hoard of youngsters, who study or work outside the State, and are dutifully back home to celebrate with their families the New Year. Their newfound exposure due to living alone and living elsewhere gives them an outlook and an attitude, which they flaunt in their interactions and they are visibly different.

" Living outside the shelter of our homes and the State gives us a new found confidence from which stems our attitude. We are thrown together with all sorts of people and have to fend for ourselves. That gives us an assertiveness which is our attitude", says Shaila Joseph, doing her graduation in a Mumbai college.

Used to a freer society and a cosmopolitan social etiquette, the adolescent finds Kochi not `happening'.

Kochi has no pubs or hangouts like other metro cities. "I guess it is limiting in that sense but then the city is not ready for it. We are still very conservative here, and the attitude for that kind of free interaction must come about together from all quarters. Well, a pub or a discotheque is no touchstone of modernisation but only a western way of expression to which we have been exposed .We don't see anything wrong in it, nor do our parents. If our values are right, then it is just another form of activity. Though here, it is sometimes frowned upon."

Saya Anjali Koshy, one among the guys and gals for whom this vacation is a time to chill, " The Kochi youngster is defining himself more. For us attitude is being seen more in our dressing and perhaps the vocabulary we are using. Television and outside exposure has contributed a lot to it, but also the fact that our older generation or parents and grandparents have travelled and worked outside. Nobody is uneducated in Kerala, and `Attitude' stems from the fact that we are aware of our capabilities. What perhaps is going wrong is that sometimes such overconfidence lends us some arrogance."

As everything is eventually an economic fallout, changing attitudes of the young is a result of that. "We are all craving too much for Vitamin M," says a bright, cool kid. `M'? Money of course! For this kid, money is as important as family values.

A mother whose young daughters studied outside the country but belong to Kochi says, "The teenagers and the twenty-year-olds are trying to imitate attitudes but reaching only till the clothes level. An attitude, they do not understand, cannot be acquired. It is something, which comes from the social and cultural influences the person is subjected to. I feel the Kochi youngster is trying to unwind only in a very western way, which they have seen in movies and learnt on college campus."

Says a high school teacher who interacts with the students as friends, " When it comes to fashion, they are with it, but what is particularly pleasing is that even at a party where they are letting their hair down, they come up to you and greet you. They don't shy away as if caught on the wrong foot. It is this new- found openness which is a great attitude to possess." A young city teenager, whose yardstick for attitude is a tattoo, a haircut and Hind rock is clearly focussed. " I have a clear picture of what I want in future, job and relationship wise. I believe in working hard and partying hard too. My parents don't seem to see anything wrong. They take it easy. My peers are quite the same, so we have a great time together but deliver the goods when it's needed."

"Attitude is only for the rich," says another youngster, distressed at the media concocting, confusing and creating terminology, which puts things in a wrong perspective. " For me it is only medicine or engineering at the moment. Perhaps that's my attitude!"

But what prevents a young'un , middle class, and rural, from flaunting his/her attitude? Isn't attitude proclaiming one's individuality and doing it in no uncertain terms? It's a free country and it doesn't always take money to flaunt an attitude. "It's not always kinky dressing that shows an attitude. That's the most superficial and easiest way to say, `come on, look at me, look at me, ain't I different? There's much else to attitude. Standing by your principals when all around you falter is indeed an attitude, I think. High time youngsters took to those kind of attitudes," says a middle-aged woman-professional.

But there's much in clothes and fashions, as we can see around us. "Wear your attitude," says a clothes ad: and spells it out. A change in attitude can work wonders, says a counsellor. If we begin to look at things differently, then they are different to us. It is all in the mind, and if it is all in the mind, then why are we not changing our mindsets to something that makes us feel good? " Once you have an attitude towards anything, it means you have a definite opinion. You are no longer a namby-pamby, wishy-washy jelly fish".

At a traditional wedding at a local temple a confident young lady in a beautiful kancheevaram, a smart, low blouse, had a turtle tattoo on her pretty back. A wave of confusion was sweeping the onlookers but madam was cool and chic. She wore her attitude and wore it well.

Here was a young lady with a mind of her own, a clear sense of direction and follow-your-heart-to-success attitude. This is what these kids possess that's different. She says, " I am no wannabe. I am not for any herd mentality. I love my turtle and my back too."

So there are the purple tie wearers, the spiked hair guys, the navel revealing girls, all in the latest fashion mode but breaking up for midnight mass on New Year night or visiting the temple, the morning after. Or there is the pretty young thing who may have donned a short black skirt and swayed to the music, but is getting grades to enter any university the world over. No, she does not need her father to put in a good word. That's not how it works any longer with these head-on-the-shoulders youngsters!

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