The ‘incorrect’ Nana meets the woke squad

Everyone should be able to withdraw into their own private place when life becomes too much for them. Mine is what I grandly call ‘the study’, where I slump into an easy chair and watch old Hindi movies on our ancient television set—the one that has knobs.

My fortress, however, is far from impregnable. One day, I was blissfully immersed in a Dev Anand starrer when Ekya stormed in unannounced. On screen, Dev sahib appeared in his signature style—collar turned up rakishly, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. My granddaughter let out a scream, as if witnessing a crime in progress.

“Why are you watching this filthy film, Nana?” she exclaimed. “That horrible man is smoking. Smoking!”

“Yes, dear,” I replied calmly. “He is smoking. My generation did it quite a lot. It was practically a personality statement for actors like Ashok Kumar, K.N. Singh and Humphrey Bogart. Smoking added a certain suave charm.”

“I wish you wouldn’t socialise with these dirty people,” she said, implying that I expected Bogart to drop by in the evening for a drink.

In a moment of fatal candour, I confessed: “You know, I used to smoke, too.”

Suddenly, there was pin-drop silence. Ekya stared at me in horror as if I had just admitted to being a regular on Epstein’s island.

Sheepishly, I tried explaining the context of our era. Film stars made smoking glamorous. ‘Kool’ cigarettes made smoking appear cool. Even the prime minister was occasionally seen with a cigarette. We were products of our time, thoroughly brainwashed by advertising and cinema.

None of the excuses impressed her.

“Never mention it again, Nana. And never in front of my friends,” she commanded, as if my past would contaminate her entire circle of social justice warriors.

My wife and I had always believed in the mythical bond between grandparents and grandchildren—a relationship of pure affection, free from the usual parent-child friction. The early years fulfilled that promise beautifully: endless cuddles, bedtime stories and unconditional adoration. Then the grandkids entered middle school and discovered correctitude! Suddenly, everything became a battlefield—habits, attitudes, clothing, language and even one’s manner of breathing.

It was Ekya who brought this reality into sharp focus. One afternoon, she looked at me squarely and declared, “Nana, why are you so weird?”

“Huh?”

“Your dressing sense is pathetic. Your attitudes are strange. You use funny words. You’re politically incorrect. And your ideas about the world are… quaint.”

Of all these charges, I could have anticipated only the ‘funny words’ accusation. Days earlier, I had casually mentioned using the Subscriber Trunk Dialling facility for long-distance calls in my college days. The acronym STD sent Ekya into hysterics that lasted till dinner. On another occasion, I nearly uttered the ‘N’ word before correcting myself to the ‘B’ word. She gravely informed me that even the ‘C’ word was now off-limits for Afro-Americans. I countered by informing her that I grew up with Noddy books featuring Big-Ears and Big-Golly, the golliwog.

“A golliwog? What’s that?”

“You really don’t want to know,” I said, smugly.

“I’m sure the usage was rude and insensitive!”

I argued that politically incorrect words often carried raw honesty. “Take the word disability. It’s neutral; even the UN uses it. But ‘divyang’ suggests divine ability, which feels like a patronising joke. Sadly, society keeps inventing gentler euphemisms, but they, too, become tainted, forcing a new cycle.”

“Political correctness fades,” I continued. “‘Untouchable’ became unacceptable, so Gandhiji coined ‘Harijan’—God’s own people. That, too, became pejorative. Then came dalit, bahujan… each term begins pristine and ends in the dustbin of wokeness with time.”

“But one has to be sensitive, Nana,” sniffed Ekya.

“Sensitivity has given us spokesperson, chairperson and businessperson,” I countered. “Imagine ‘personhole’ instead of manhole! The Navy would sink under midshippersons. And I will never call a batsman a ‘batter’—that’s a cake mixture!”

The generational divide due to heightened awareness extends beyond vocabulary—to even food choices. I relish deep fried pakoras and view ghee as an essential nutrient. Ekya approaches every meal like a moral referendum. One bite of refined sugar, and I stand accused of planetary destruction.

“Nana, that has palm oil in it!” she gasps at a samosa order on Zomato, launching into lectures on global warming, deforestation and carbon footprints. My simple pleasures must meet woke culture standards. Even my ‘improper’ sense of humour invites censure. I once shared a mildly cheeky joke about marriage. Ekya stared in horror: “Nana, that’s problematic.”

In my day, very few things were ‘problematic’—we laughed at ourselves, at each other, and at life’s absurdities without fear. Today, comedy is curated and sanitised. What I find uproariously funny often elicits only a weak smile, if anything, from my granddaughter. Even genuine amusement is suppressed, lest it offend some invisible audience.

I do not claim my generation was perfect. We smoked too much, spoke boldly, argued passionately, and wore our convictions openly. We observed basic courtesies but refused to walk on eggshells. Ekya, by contrast, inhabits a world of curated outrage and performative virtue. Every statement is weighed for potential harm; every choice judged against shifting standards of propriety.

Our differing perceptions convince me that grandparents are from Earth while grandchildren hail from an entirely different galaxy. Mercifully, love bridges the woke chasm—awkwardly, but frequently enough.

K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com