What Keeps Me Calm As I Get Older? Honestly, Not Much.

Honestly, Not Much.

I used to think growing older meant growing calmer. That at some point, you stop reacting and start accepting.

But then I look around and I can't.

I'm 24-something in India in 2024. Unemployment among youth is hovering around 45% for graduates according to CMIE data. The education system is underfunded, overburdened, and increasingly distracted by curriculum changes that prioritize mythology over mathematics.

And the man at the top? He hasn't held a single open press conference in over 10 years of being Prime Minister. Not one. Where global leaders face journalists, answer hard questions, and defend their record our PM appears on controlled interviews, curated events, and Mann Ki Baat monologues. That's not governance. That's a PR operation.

New movements, like CJP have been documenting what mainstream media increasingly won't hate crimes, constitutional violations, minority targeting. They've built legal and factual records while the rest of us scroll past. That work keeps me sane, honestly. Knowing someone is writing it down.

Meanwhile, GST on essential goods, rising fuel prices, and stagnant wages mean the average Indian family is running harder just to stay in place. When you're financially exhausted, you don't protest. You survive. Maybe that's the point.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm just someone who reads the data and notices the pattern.

What keeps me calm as I get older?

Writing. Riding. And refusing to stop asking questions that powerful people won't answer.

That has to be enough for now.