Smoke, mirrors and the starving mind

Indian Express

a day ago

I met her on Instagram — let's call her Meera. A small-town South Indian girl in her early twenties, a law student at a premier Indian institution. She found my profile, followed my posts, started responding to my stories. Her comments were sharp, sensitive, thoughtful. I get hundreds of DMs a week—some thirsty, some thankful, most forgettable. But I remembered her. She had a voice. And when she moved to Mumbai to start her legal career, we finally met.
At first, I saw a future luminary. Smart, articulate, ambitious. But the more time I spent with her, the more I felt a quiet unease. Something wasn't adding up. Her thoughts, her questions, her inner world — it all felt hollow. Every conversation would veer into the who-wore-what of Instagram, the who-partied-where of influencers, the where-should-I-go of meaningless travel. Her brain, once full of promise, was now bouncing like a pinball inside an endless scroll.
Let me say this early, clearly, and without qualification: I am not writing this from a perch. I don't speak from superiority or detachment. I've spent years in the company of hundreds of young people — mentoring, listening, being taught. Some have come from almost nothing and built astonishing lives. Some have had every comfort and still hustle harder than anyone I know. Others, despite talent and training, are complacent. There is no one box, no easy classification. But there is something happening — and we need to comprehend it. I've learned more from the young than I can count. They've shown me what I missed in my own youth. They've made me proud, inspired, and sometimes ashamed of how little I did when I had my chance. I write this from a place of affection, not authority. From concern, not condescension.
This is a qualified lawyer. She went through one of the most intellectually rigorous courses a student can take. And yet—no curiosity, no conviction, no calm. She worried in real time about the breakup of an influencer she didn't know, about a reel gone viral for the wrong reasons, about whether she should go to Mauritius or Maldives. Her world was urgent, tense, and empty.
One day she told me she wasn't making enough money. She was borrowing from siblings and friends, saying her expenses were unavoidable. I asked what these unavoidable expenses were. Part of it was going toward skin lightening treatments. I lost it. I said, Are you mad? You're an educated woman, a legal professional—how have we ended up here?
She follows all the makeup tricks, the clothing hacks, the sales at H&M and Zara. But she has no clue about thread count, fabric, labels, designers, their stories, their struggles, their biographies. Nothing. It's all surface. This isn't passion—it's performative. Knowledge that comes from scrolling, not studying. From following trends, not following through.
It's not an isolated case.
More and more of these young minds—engineers, MBAs, doctors, actors, designers—are stuck. Not for lack of opportunity. Not for lack of privilege. But for lack of legs.
They all want arms that reach—grabbing fame, grabbing influence, waving for attention. But nobody wants to build the sturdy legs it takes to stand, walk, fall, stand again, and move forward.
It's the boring work before greatness that they resist.
Take Rhea. Born and raised in Mumbai. Wants to be an actor. Her dream isn't about art—it's about visibility. Her investments go into her body: weight, waist, skin, jawline, curves. Hours spent worrying about filters, body angles, camera tricks. Ask her about diction? She stumbles. She can't speak English with clarity, can't carry Hindi with confidence, and Urdu is a distant cousin she's never met. She wants to star in Indian cinema but knows nothing about India's theatrical legacy. Can't name ten great actors, five great directors, or three film genres. Ask her about cinema beyond Bollywood—France, Iran, Korea—and you get a blank stare. Ask her to sing, dance, recite—she's taken 'just enough' classes, but none with depth. She wants to be discovered, but hasn't done the work worth discovering.
The hunger is cosmetic. The effort, curated. The goal, clout.
I've met fashion aspirants who can't tell silk from satin, linen from polyester, who think 'thread count' is a TikTok challenge. But they want their names lit up. Designers who can name influencers but not fabric types. Artists who won't step into a museum unless it's trending. And yet they call themselves creatives.
Here's the irony: the influencers they idolize—Orry, Urfi Javed, Sahil Salathia—are not lazy minds. I know some of them personally. They've worked tirelessly. They study, hustle, learn. But their followers? They want the look of success without the labor of becoming.
Parabjot Bali, a model from Jammu, is one of the few exceptions I know. He's a reel-maker, a social media natural. But he also reads poetry, writes with elegance, and can talk for hours about music, cinema, or politics. His captions are smart. His reels have rhythm. There's substance under the style. He's not just online—he's alive.
Then there's Aamir Rabbani. Grew up in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. Knew he was gay by his teens, and also knew he couldn't say it out loud. He got into Jamia Millia for fine arts, moved to Delhi, worked full-time while studying full-time, lived frugally, learned constantly. Today, he's head of design at the Observer Research Foundation and exhibits his art internationally. I asked him once how he did it. He said: 'Internet. Google. Instagram. Social media helped me find the world I was looking for. But I had to do the work.'
He treats the online world like a library, not a casino.
So no, I'm not anti-social media. I love it. I use it. I live on it. I post daily, respond often, and rotate my 7,500-friend limit on Instagram with generosity and joy. I don't gatekeep. If you follow me and reach out, I usually reply. I believe in access. I believe in visibility. I've built entire platforms and projects through digital reach. I don't resent the medium.
What I resent is the mental laziness that's using it as a shortcut instead of a superpower.
Greatness comes after boredom. You must be bored before you're brilliant. You must fail before you're formidable. You must learn, long before you're loved.
There's a strange crisis unfolding. Young minds aren't broken by poverty or war or hunger. They're broken by option paralysis, by endless comparison, by trend-chasing that never leads to truth. And they're exhausted—lonely, sad, entitled, anxious. Not because they've tried and failed, but because they haven't tried and they know it.
And I see all of this—still—in Meera. She has so much brilliance in her. But she's caught in the trap. She told me recently about a man who wanted to date her. A few years older. A solid guy. Wrote her a book-length message about his feelings. 'He's so sweet,' she said, 'but I don't know.'
'Why not?' I asked.
'I don't know,' she shrugged.
And there it was again: the passivity, the confusion, the inability to want something and work for it. A kind of paralysis wrapped in privilege.
Meera could still be one of the greats. She has the talent. The access. The spark. But if she doesn't slow down, if she doesn't wake up, she may scroll her way past a future that's trying to find her.
The world is ready to celebrate her. But first—she must build her legs.