“Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won’t like his tone of colour, or something.” — Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Jeena Sarah Jacob, a 28-year-old PhD scholar at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, is confounded about not being able to relate to people just a few years younger to her. “Take Pokemon Go, for instance. I have no interest in playing that game, because by the time Pokemon came on TV, I wasn’t watching cartoons anymore. But Flintstones? Swat Cats? Doesn’t ring a bell? I give up.”

Age is often not just a number, as people turning 25 begin to discover. Adulthood is increasingly being seen as an abyss by a ‘Peter Pan generation’ that refuses to grow up (If you have something as mainstream as a job and a family, you may as well be dead, or worse, an old bore).

“At the end of the day, we’re all a bunch of f***ing ageists. You can feel young in so many ways, yet there’s so much you are expected to do to fit into the definition of what ‘young’ means in internet jargon. It is so straitjacketed,” Jacob says.

Nevertheless, pushing back against the ‘forever young’ fixation is a subculture that is self-assuredly at peace with growing old. A popular online cartoon page called Sarah’s Scribbles, run by a digital comic artist from Boston, has for its main character an anxious young woman projecting this generation’s worries — a widely shared cartoon recently was titled ‘retirement homes for 29-year-olds’ (Sarah’s published works include the self-revelatory Adulthood is a Myth ).

That the idea of being young is venerated is problematic, since it is so narrow, says Jacob. “I have a problem with people who laugh at old people holding hands in a mall, for instance. Why is young love so romantic, and old people romancing oh-so-hilarious? Then there are these expressions such as ‘young at heart’ that underscore how important it is to keep up the pretence of eternal youth, the boundaries of which are constantly being pushed.”

As to what passes for young — a definition that is as vague and ever-changing as the pop culture it swears by — is today largely determined by money, she says.

“Everyone wants to get rich fast, and not have to work too much for it, by having one brilliant idea and becoming an entrepreneur. A certain lifestyle is also a driver of this desire. You want to have a pile of cash to travel with, or spend in clubs.”

Jacob knew that academics wouldn’t fetch her the kind of money a full-time job would do. It was a conscious decision on her part to pursue her research on Indian medieval history. “It is difficult to explain to people holding regular jobs why I choose to sacrifice financial opportunities for a career in academics.”

At 29, Gaurav Sharma took the unusual decision of retiring from his corporate job at Standard Chartered Bank. “There were many factors involved, but mainly I found a much more efficient way of making a living, which is close to what a retired person would have, while still maintaining the same old lifestyle in terms of financial freedom.”

Sharma does part-time financial consulting, and while he misses the bustle of a regular job, he is sure he won’t go back. “The amount of work I do is negligible. Over time, I realised there are some aspects of my previous work that I miss, such as meeting people or having to work through the day. It is possible to have too much time on your hands. I have to plan in such a way that I’m kept occupied the whole day... that is a challenge. But, overall, it is still a no-brainer.”

Amaan Khan, 27 , who gave up his day-job as a music journalist to teach English at CP Goenka International School in Juhu, Mumbai, calls it one of the best decisions of his life. “It may look glamorous from outside, but I was disillusioned by how the media works, and what is actually read, at least in digital media. I never imagined I would enjoy teaching so much.” And he’s learning to look at his young wards with new eyes. “I do not feel disconnected at all, they do not make me feel like a relic. They’re so sharp and witty, and we have meaningful conversations. However clichéd it may sound, young minds do inspire... I feel it every day.”

Of course, the decision to take up teaching did come with its share of pangs. “I would keep telling people that this is temporary, a stop-gap in my career, even though I was enjoying what I was doing.”

He puts down his anxiety not so much to growing older as to risk being looked upon as someone who has fallen behind his life goals. “By 27, people start quizzing you about whether you want to marry. A house, children, mortgage, a certain amount of money in the bank — these are all very real pressures.”

Jacob contends that these pressures are felt all the more acutely by women. “Men have it easier. They aren’t always shamed into doing what is called ‘age-appropriate’. For men, appearing young and cool is easy — sometimes just by wearing a pair of shorts, for instance. For women, what you wear is a hugely politicised issue. Then, with ageing, as their personal lives become more complicated, women are often forced to make a choice between career and kids. So adulthood may be newfound independence for some, but for other women it may actually result in a pressure to lose it.”

Material acquisitions form a big part of the “young” image one projects. Jacob says she is constantly ribbed for owning a ‘dabba (read not-smart) phone’.

The pressure to keep buying stuff is real, concedes Sharma, as individuals get sucked into this vortex of projecting youth and success. “Surprisingly, a lot of people who make a lot of money are still indebted. They feel compelled to buy a house and, to keep up, move into a bigger house. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Once you’re outside the system, you realise how stupid you were to have followed the system for so long.”

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