Thread by @twinsighter

Ethnographic research gives you some of the best stories.
About 11 years ago, for over a month, I hung out on college campuses across Delhi. I learnt about K-Nags, g-jams. And c-bats. (Nobody publicly admits to calling them that, but the name hangs around like a bat at dusk. (1)

Technically, my project involved understanding the music sensibilities of the young people of the day. What I actually did was make friends with college kids, haunt their canteens and hangouts with them, using the six degrees of separation strategy to talk to more people. (2)

I'd been in Delhi for just over a year then so it was a fantastic initiation into the city in many ways. I learnt of its ways and backways. I discovered you can find the best cheese chili fries across from Venky’s on South Campus in a shop that you only know if you know. (3)

While hanging out in North Campus, I had my car towed near Tees Hazari, and thanks to a worldly-wise friend, learnt what it takes to get it back from a police station without having to grease any palms. I doubt I could do it as masterfully as she did it back then though. (4)

I hung out at a couple of college festivals, trying to behave like I belonged there and hoping desperately that in the darkness, din and masti of the concerts, nobody would actually find out that I was merely there to people-watch. (5)

I had these two mentors—actually college students at DU—who took me under their wing and introduced me to a bunch of their friends. They all graciously spent a lot of time chatting with me without making me feel out of place despite my clearly being an outsider. (6)

I attended one of the best music festivals I’ve ever seen anywhere, over three days at the Okhla NSIC Grounds. Created to showcase the best of original contemporary Indian music at the time, the Eastwind festival introduced me to fantastic bands like Them Clones and Mrigya. (7)

There were 63 bands playing on multiple stages from morning through night for three consecutive days. I turned up on all three days in the uniform that all fans turned up in: black tee, blue jeans and Chuck Taylors (in my case, the original Indian equivalent: North Star). (8)

It was heady. I got to go backstage and talk to some of the artistes—Neel Hariharan from Mrigya, some of the members of Indian Ocean (I doubt they’ll remember me) stand out. I got to headbang to Vishal Dadlani and his band, Pentagram. (They were actually quite good.) (9)

Two insights stand out from this immersive project.
Mrigya had been around for a while but had never cut an album. “We’re performing artists, not recording artists,” Neel told me. “Our high comes from connecting with a live audience, even if it’s an audience of 5 people.” (10)

How many brands, I reflected afterwards, can claim to be performing artists, truly connecting with their audiences, and not just recording artists, transmitting their messages to their audiences? (11)

The second insight came from people’s iPods (they were a thing back then). Most of them had Billboard chart toppers on the top of their playlists. And most of them listened to Himesh Reshammiya’s Aashiq banaya and other Bollywood hits of the day more than the Billboard hits. (12)

It was a very Delhi thing but also a very young person thing to do. You’ve got to be seen as being and knowing the cool stuff, even if your actual tastes may reveal you as something else. A decade later, I have a feeling that has changed. (13)

Although it was already beginning to show in the confidence of the generation I met then.

I met this student and asked her to describe herself.

“I’m hot,” she said.

And she didn’t mean it in a vain or shallow way. She was just showing off her self-confidence. (14)

She, among many others I met then, visibly signaled the turn that India was taking—towards being self-aware, self-confident and proud of who she was on a global stage.

#InsightStories