New Delhi, Aug. 15 -- One of the first films I watched soon after I finished college and started work-living alone in a new city as a reporter and with friends to take up every free moment-was Dil Chahta Hai. Bangalore of the early 2000s was far removed from Sydney, Mumbai or Goa, but as Raja Sen writes of the film that released 25 years ago, it was "an advertisement for the youth we wanted", even though we had it far, far better than most our peers.

"You have it so good" has tended to be the prevailing sentiment when older generations talk down to the younger when they ask for more or express themselves. It's nearly three weeks since the barricades were taken down, the murals washed away and the memes replaced on our algorithms, but the...