Youth Icon 2009: Substance scores over Style

A leading Indian newspaper has let out a list of Top 10 Indian youth icons this Sunday. The survey was reportedly conducted among 200 youths (ages 18 to 25) across 10 major Indian cities. Although the results of the survey were inspiring, it sure had its bits of errors.

Firstly, the sample size of 200 people across 10 cities (that made it a petty 20 peoples per city) was rather small for a national newspaper to conduct a survey that was going to be reported on the cover of their supplement magazine. Secondly, their gaffe of putting style-icons, cinema celebrities and achievers with go-getter spirit who have made this country proud, under the same bracket and branding them all as youth-icon is no less than a blunder.

Despite these handful of flaws, that could’ve made this list irrelevant to what it claims to establish -- youth icon--, there is a positive side to it.

The biggest surprise that came up was that for the first time youths of India have voted a Security Force as their top inspiration in a popular icon survey – yeah, you heard it right—the list has been topped by the prestigious National Security Guards (NSG), India’s elite counter-terrorism organization.

Limping behind, by a large margin, was cine actor Shahrukh Khan, followed by Indian cricket team’s captain M S Dhoni. Another actor, Amir Khan, found place at fourth spot. Olympic Gold winner Adhinav Bindra and Booker Prize winner Arvind Adiga also found place on fifth and ninth positions in this cine actor dominated list.

Five out of ten positions in this list were occupied by cinema celebrities, who were probably voted into this list by some glamor-blinded youths. However, the overall outcome surely reflects that substance definitely scored over style among majority of the youths.

Surprisingly, only two women – corporate icon Chanda Kochchar and cine actor Kareena Kapoor -- made it to the list (I’d have loved to see Katrina Kaif, my personal favourite, in place of Kareena on this list though. But alas, I didn’t get to vote).

Moreover, only one politician could make into this list -- the Gandhi scion, Rahul Gandhi. This Cambridge and Harvard University alum is sure making an impact on the Indian youth and is playing an instrumental role, along with his other contemporaries, in cleaning the tarnished image of Indian politicians that has anchored into the minds of commoner.