It is what I suspected all along. Young middle-class Indians are obedient, docile reactionaries who do what Mummy and Daddy tell them, follow old customs unthinkingly, seek a good life for themselves with plenty of material goods, and never use their own brains.

This much is clear from a survey of 5214 middle-class young men and women aged between 18 and 25 by the Hindustan Times, published on August 12. So what's wrong with that, you might ask.

A GQ India cover.

Everything. One expects the younger generation to rebel against the status quo, rock the boat, fight against injustice and to be fired up with idealistic fervour to create a better world. There is not a trace of this in the survey's findings. Indians are die-hard traditionalists, even if these traditions are regressive.

Sixty-three per cent of men wanted their wives to be virgins; 67 per cent said they preferred joint families to nuclear ones; 68 per cent said they always listened to their elders; only 4 per cent would override their parents' objections to marry the person of their choice; seven out of 10 said the onus was on women, not men, to save a marriage from divorce; and, most alarming of all, more than six out of 10 feel dowry is acceptable.