If you were born anytime between the early 1980's and mid-1990's, technically, you are a millennial. This means today, the oldest among this lot are approaching their 40's while the youngest are in their mid-20's. As per the Population and Housing Census of Bhutan 2017, people falling in this age group constitutes 27.5% of the total population. And for the purpose of this article, I will be referring to millennials, as those falling in the age group of 25-35 years. Let’s call them young millennials for simplifying the matter. For the folks in 35-40 years age group, bros, bros, bros, listen - you just have to know that your playlist of 80's Hindi songs is where we draw the line. And no, we don’t really understand your fascination for Wechat.
Today, we are branded as degenerates who missed out on being moulded by the good old tough way of life and spoilt by all comforts that came accompanying the modernization. We have become a heat sink for the old folks to pour out their frustrations and an easy target to point to, for all the things gone south. We have been accused of being emotionally incompetent, tarnishing the value of love and lacking the drive to do anything. We are the reasons for rise in divorce cases and decline of natality rate in the country. We killed the zhung dra and robbed tshechus off of their sacredness. Heck, I’m sure there are some old folks who blamed us for all of the natural calamities that have occurred in the country in recent years.
We were brought up by a generation who were inspired to change. Change, not in the sense of a complete break up from our values and traditions, but one which adopted the good things the modernization had to offer and abandoned the ailing practices that the old ways promoted. And as a consequence, the young millennial, when we grew up, we were not exactly the good old-fashioned young adults our parents had been, back in their times. And when they saw this, they found all the reasons to come up with the narrative of the degenerate generation.
However, if they could only practice a tiny bit of empathy that they so fervently use in their rhetoric, they could see how misunderstood a generation we really are. The late 80s and 90s was a time when Bhutan was completing the last stages of embracing modernization. Televisions and internet had finally touched people’s lives. New ideologies and concepts were seeping in. People saw that they were way behind and felt a need to pace up and adapt. They became aware of what formidable force education was, how rewarding investment, a good health proved to be and saw wonders of having a small family. They prioritized their careers more, focused on acquiring financial stability before starting a family. They wanted better lives for their children. The young millennials were brought up in this period, where their parents were going through a paradigm shift in their ways of thinking. And indeed, this had an impact.
The tear in the fabric of true sense of Bhutanese familyhood was inadvertently initiated during this period. People turned into careerists and family moved down the list of priorities. Kids were sent to schools at tender ages of 5. “Busy” became a part of our daily lexicon. Long gone were the old ways of eating together and conversing. We ate alone mostly and during the rare occasions of dining together, we did it in front of a lifeless box that did nothing but intensify and aggravate our self-consciousness.
At schools, we were taught to work hard and study well in order to succeed in life. We were taught to put our careers first and stand on our feet before getting into the worldly affairs. We did as we were told but there can be only so much the government can provide for us. Unemployment has been rampant for some years now and despite the government’s effort to tone it down in figures, we can see its consequence. There are thousands of millennials without jobs and even those supposedly “lucky ones” or “the creams” are not satisfied in the top tier jobs they have secured. Because as blatant as it may sound, the jobs just don’t pay well. That’s why we don’t want to settle down anytime soon. We just can’t afford to start families in such positions. So you see, every year, hundreds of millennials leave the country in search for jobs in foreign lands.
Maybe in the spirit of the old folks, we should blame their generation for where the economy stands today. For gifting us with this unemployment epidemic that has rendered us with all the symptoms, they incessantly condescend us for. But no, we are the Bhutanese millennials and beyond all critiques, we are a responsible generation who still upholds the Bhutanese values. We work hard as we were taught and we look at challenges, not as hurdles but as blessings in disguise for us to capitalize on. And we shall move ahead, no matter the pace. We will keep the Bhutanese essence well preserved and flourishing for all times to come.
P.S: And no! We did not kill zhung dra. Let's just say that the elders let their eardrums indulge a little too much to the tunes of the 80s Bollywood music when the cassette players became popular. Just as they saw their lives one step too backward in the modern scene, they felt the same about zhung dra and made some tweaks to the genre and allowed the proliferation of what is known today, as Rigsar (the new kind). All the more reason why the young millennials do not listen to the 80s Hindi music.
P.S: And no! We did not kill zhung dra. Let's just say that the elders let their eardrums indulge a little too much to the tunes of the 80s Bollywood music when the cassette players became popular. Just as they saw their lives one step too backward in the modern scene, they felt the same about zhung dra and made some tweaks to the genre and allowed the proliferation of what is known today, as Rigsar (the new kind). All the more reason why the young millennials do not listen to the 80s Hindi music.
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