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Whether you are a Pakistani man in Lahore or an English woman in London, the way a society defines masculinity quietly shapes the lives of everyone within it. These definitions influence how families form, how work is valued, how children are raised, and how individuals respond to change and stress. When such definitions lag behind reality—or disappear altogether—the effects are rarely confined to one gender or one generation. The question of how we define the “Desi Dude” is therefore not a niche cultural debate, but part of a broader inquiry into how societies adapt—or fail to adapt—to rapid transformation.

How might the male of the 21st century cruise high in a world defined and driven by technology, business, and media, so that he is a gentleman for women, a dude for men, and a guiding light for children around him?

Today’s conversation is about why there is a need to define the Desi Dude, what forces exist within which we must operate and, along with historical context, what future scenarios we must plan to avoid so that we can act today before it is too late.

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Contents

Not Just an Indian Problem
Describing the Problem
Background
My Motivation
The Forces at Play
1234Fear
1234Automatic Emulation
1234The Power of Influencers
1234The Greed of the Power behind the Power
1234The Unholy Trinity
1234Governments
1234Big Food, Big Pharma, Bigger Fools
1234Radicalization Forces
1234Mechanisation, Automation, Robotics and AI
1234The Female Workforce
1234Relationships
1234Terminated Relationships
1234Fertility
1234Nuclear and Single-Child Families
1234The Urge to Thrive
1234Remote Working
1234Embracing Fatherhood
1234Free Knowledge, AI-assisted Learning
1234Hiring Based on Skills, not Certificates
1234Pushing Back Religion, Pulling Spirituality Forward
1234Influencers of Good
Consequences of Not Addressing Definitions
What Must be Addressed Next?
Take-Home Message
Parting Message

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Not Just an Indian Problem [top]

The issues at hand are not just an Indian problem, but ones that have similar versions across all other countries. Not just for Pakistanis (who also use the term Desi) but in every country around the world where the themes exist to a greater or lesser extent. Whilst we could look to the West for clues to answers, that might often be to learn what mistakes we must not make.

Today, 1 out of every 4 humans on the planet is from the Indian subcontinent. While some of the remaining world’s population might believe that they are “more evolved”, the truth may well be that they are failing to recognise some of the problems that their societies are facing.

Describing the Problem [top]

The Indian male is westward-looking, but he remains Indian at heart and lives in an ecosystem that is Indian, with its own culture, subcultures, and values. Indian women continue to be empowered by society and have become more “modern” through education and advancement in the labour force. While that is a very good thing overall, Indian men, who have been the final decision makers at home and outside for generations, now have no special guidance on how to deal with the many concurrent changes around them. The influence of Western cultural values and the explosive effect of social media have led to many Indian men being a little “lost” and stagnant, or with the feeling that, although they are moving, they are swimming against a tide, and probably to a shore that may well not be the right one for them. Men are also told, like they have been for centuries, that they need to man up, and yet, today, they are expected to embrace their feminine side. This does not leave them less confused.

Compared with their fathers, Indian men have more opportunities, but they also have more competition from those younger than them, from an ever-expanding middle class, and from females, of course. If the rising costs of private education and private healthcare are not enough, there is a rise in the price of the basket of desires that a typical Indian family considers its expectations to be reasonable.

The net effect of this set of varied forces? Despite any outward appearances of success, there is often more unhappiness, greater anxiety and stress reported. And, sometimes, substance abuse and suicide are used as escape routes.

Background [top]

I started writing a book, “The Desi Dude”, three years ago to address the challenges that men of Indian origin below the age of 45 typically deal with. It struck me that, despite incredible diversity in the Indian population around the country and across the rest of the world, there were themes common throughout the globe that were relevant to the problems for this group. While it seemed at first like it was someone else’s problem, as I looked back at history and where we had come from, where we are at today, and where we might be heading for the rest of this century, I could only conclude that the problems are going to affect all of us.

My Motivation [top]

Academics can publish themselves to death with analysis and explanations for why we transitioned from a reasonably stable past to our current state in an almost unchecked manner. Still, I am more interested in taking action to ensure a future with fewer errors. The academic can explain that the frog did not know that the water in its bucket was gradually getting hotter, but I would like to focus on ways to get him out of the hot water before it is too late.

The first step in solving any problem is to define it, understand its causes, and consider the consequences of leaving it unresolved. Having briefly described the problem, what can we say are its causes?

The Forces at Play [top]

For defining the Desi Dude, we should be aware of many forces at play, many of which are not new, but rather presented in different forms over time.

Fear [top]

In past eras, social norms were set by elders at home and the community. The chief motivation for this was fear, the fear of a loss of predictable structure. If men and women seemed more obedient and compliant with these rules earlier, it arose from an equivalent understanding that it was better for them, within the context of their home or community. Today, there are additional fears that are also different. FOMO, for example, is a stronger force today than before. Who cares what my grandmother is recommending? I am keener to keep up with my neighbour.

Automatic Emulation [top]

Humans have an almost automatic tendency to copy one another, and this subtle instinct has quietly shaped the foundations of society. Long before laws were written or institutions built, communities found order by observing and echoing the behaviours around them. Imitation, often unconscious, was the glue that held groups together, creating shared norms and culture without deliberate design.

Today, that same force operates on a global scale. With smartphones and social media, patterns of behaviour spread instantly, turning local habits into worldwide trends. What was once slow, organic imitation has become a powerful engine of cultural change, accelerated by technology, and amplified across billions of screens. The question is no longer whether imitation shapes us—it is how much control we truly have over the patterns we absorb.

The Power of Influencers [top]

Just a few decades ago, most of the forces that defined an impressionable man originated in his home. Today, everyone within that home and outside is strongly influenced by both traditional and social media. While previously, Religion and the Ruler determined what families ate, how they dressed or what work they did, now, with media as the primary channel of influence, many interest groups around the world have an opportunity to mould what members of your society choose.

The Greed of the Power behind the Power [top]

If earlier norms were designed to keep wealth and power within the family, clan, tribe, or clergy, we now have the profit motive of corporations of all sizes around the globe being a driving factor for how a society functions and how individuals within it operate. If, earlier, maintaining the status quo in society was a primary goal, today the primary goal is higher investment returns for shareholders.

The Unholy Trinity [top]

At an individual level, across all species, for evolutionary reasons, the Unholy Trinity has and will always be present. However, giving in to it easily, rather than mastering it, has been a worsening trend in each successive generation. Avoiding pain, seeking pleasure, conserving energy – the 3 parts to the Unholy Trinity will be evident to you wherever you look today. If the minds of young men and women are weakened with each passing year, we have a problem at the atomic level of society. There will be more individuals who will respond instinctively to short-term forces of attraction. The cost will be the loss of the long-term benefits, thriving, earned by being proactive with thought and action. The less we move towards mastering ourselves, the more we move towards being slaves to others.

Governments [top]

Governments, even in elected democracies, typically align their incentives with those of the corporations that fund them, providing only lip service to the needs of the average citizen whose votes are needed to keep them in power. Whether you live in the East, West, North or South, you cannot rely on your government to save your world.

Big Food, Big Pharma, Bigger Fools [top]

Big Food entices customers who are then passed on to Big Pharma. Unethical strategies they use range from funding (bribing) scientists to research and publish only what is in their favour, to outright false advertising and using social media to spread confusing information.

Men, women, and their children become addicted to Big Food products and are fooled into believing that Big Pharma will solve their problems. Much of why educated men and women give away healthy years in exchange for money is to manage the fears of rising sickcare costs, especially for when they hope they will someday be older and believe they will need that expensive sickcare. There is a misunderstanding that money can buy back lost health.

Radicalization Forces [top]

Nature and statistics together explain why societies inevitably produce individuals with extraordinary physical or mental abilities. By the same logic, what seems to the average person like extreme or fringe ideologies are bound to emerge. Humanity then faces a choice: whether to channel these extremes toward constructive ends or destructive ones.

Across both developing and developed nations, history shows that fringe political and religious movements regularly surface—some inspiring progress, others sowing division. A particular vulnerability lies among young men under 25, especially those who feel excluded or disenfranchised. For them, the allure of cleverly packaged, sinister messaging can be strong, and such groups exploit this susceptibility to destabilize societies or target vulnerable populations.

Mechanisation, Automation, Robotics and AI [top]

If technological advances allowed women to compete with men in a growing set of job functions, today, increasing automation has us in a structural shift where certain roles will no longer exist for any gender, and new types of jobs will have everyone competing for them. Technology has always created structural shifts, but what if the changes are rapid and there is insufficient assistance for those who lose out from them? Until it affects the dividends they receive, shareholders do not care about trends in unemployment. Until it affects their ability to control power, political parties do not care about the percentage who are unemployed.

The Female Workforce [top]

In traditional societies, men and women assumed different roles shaped by biology and necessity: men acquired resources outside the home, while women managed households and raised children. This division broadly fits pre-industrial realities.

Modern conditions have dismantled that alignment. Mechanisation and household technology have reduced the labour required to run a home, while economic activity has shifted from farms to factories, offices, and digital environments where physical strength offers little advantage and formal education is the main requirement. As a result, women have entered the workforce at scale across industrial, professional, and knowledge sectors.

In principle, equal work should command equal pay, though even advanced economies struggle to deliver this consistently. Beyond equity, governments and corporations have strong incentives to expand the labour pool, increase productivity, and sustain growth. Female participation in paid work is no longer a social experiment or a policy choice—it is a permanent structural reality that any serious conversation about men, work, and identity must begin with, not argue against.

Relationships [top]

Globally, the dominant theme is fewer and later marriages, more cohabitation without marriage, and a higher lifetime probability of a dissolution of any union between 2 people. If eventual dissolution becomes an expectation, how will it impact the decisions to form a union in the first place? How will such unions operate?

Western social scientists studying the neuroscience of relationships have confirmed that the Western fairy tale romance and falling-in-love approach is not what creates strong unions. Instead, it is the daily actions that build loving relationships that last – something that traditional cultures understood and espoused. Unfortunately, a greater proportion of men and women ignore the evidence of a thousand years when choosing how to start and build loving relationships, not least because what they consume as fictional entertainment from an early age is influenced by the West.

Terminated Relationships [top]

The impact of relationships that break down is not limited to the two adults but cascades to any children they are responsible for and future partners each of them might have. How children perceive disagreement, conflict, and its resolution, especially between their parents, strongly influences their future choices of partners and their abilities to handle the conflict that inevitably arises between any two human beings.

Fertility [top]

That the fertility rate in India has dropped below the replacement rate, like in many other countries, is not a problem for an individual man or woman to solve. However, the forces that have led to this drop in birth rates are real. While some forces are positive (female empowerment through education, earning their own income, using contraception), others are negative (increasing costs of education and housing). The decision to have no children, one child or many should be a joint one, taken wisely. Having a child to nurture provides an opportunity, but not a guarantee, to raise the maturity of men and women. On the other hand, if those who become parents today are not quite emotionally healthy themselves, what quality of nurture will they provide? Dollars are lubrication in the economic system; character is built from something very different.

Nuclear and Single-Child Families [top]

The shift toward nuclear households with only one child—often a son—reshapes the way boys grow up by concentrating parental attention and expectations within a smaller unit. On the one hand, these boys benefit from greater investment in education, closer emotional bonds, and stronger adult communication skills; on the other, they risk over‑protection, weaker peer socialisation, and the emotional burden of being cast as the family’s sole project. Without siblings or extended kin to diffuse responsibility, the boy may oscillate between entitlement and anxiety, depending on how parents balance autonomy with boundaries. Ultimately, outcomes hinge less on the family’s structure itself than on the quality of parenting, the creation of peer networks, and the ability to share emotional load realistically, ensuring that concentrated attention becomes a source of resilience rather than pressure.

The Urge to Thrive [top]

While the majority seek short-term pleasure, there is a smaller section of society that actively seeks to thrive, willingly exposing themselves to short-term pain for longer-term gain. While for some, these short-term sacrifices might be made to enhance fame, financial wealth, or power beyond need, a sizable, growing minority is seeking to multiply their internal wealth.

Remote Working [top]

If industrialisation drove humans from villages to towns and cities and the shift from manufacturing to intangible services drove many into expensive cities, the post-pandemic shift towards remote working has allowed many knowledge workers to afford housing and other facilities in cheaper locations, cleaner environments, or with easier access to nature.

Embracing Fatherhood [top]

Initiated by necessity, many men are embracing fatherhood in modern settings with increased involvement in various day-to-day activities of children. This is a shift away from previous generations, where the father’s role was to leave the physical space of the home to earn money for his family, and be tired when home, resting to recover for another day of work to bring home resources from outside.

Free Knowledge, AI-assisted Learning [top]

Free knowledge and personalized learning are no longer idealistic—they are becoming practical realities in a connected world. At its best, education should spark curiosity, critical thinking, and growth without financial barriers. Technology has reshaped this landscape: MOOCs deliver university-level instruction at little or no cost, while digital libraries, open-source texts, and global communities make quality knowledge widely accessible. Artificial intelligence adds personalized explanations, adaptive practice, instant feedback, and round-the-clock support, reducing reliance on costly tutoring and rigid structures. Together, open platforms and AI shift education from a guarded commodity to a shared resource, where opportunity depends on motivation and curiosity, not money.

Hiring Based on Skills, not Certificates [top]

The employment landscape in the knowledge economy is undergoing a quiet but significant shift. Employers are beginning to recognize the value of demonstrable skills over traditional certifications. While university degrees still carry weight in established corporate hierarchies and regulated professions, a wider change is visible across many sectors in India, where hiring practices increasingly prioritize ability and experience.

For the modern Desi Dude—caught between the soaring costs of private education and fierce competition within a growing middle class—this evolution offers a critical advantage. Instead of relying solely on a gatekept certificate, candidates can now showcase their worth through portfolios, project work, apprenticeships, and community learning. Practical talent, once overshadowed by formal credentials, is finding space to shine.

The transition is gradual, with some employers still defaulting to familiar degree filters. Yet the looming global talent shortage suggests that hands‑on experience and proven ability are fast becoming the most reliable currency in the 21st‑century workplace.

Pushing Back Religion, Pulling Spirituality Forward [top]

Modern youth are increasingly distancing themselves from institutionalised, organised religion in favour of a more personalised, self-guided spirituality. This “pushback” often arises because religious institutions can be perceived as judgmental, politicised, or out of touch with contemporary issues such as mental health and shifting gender dynamics. In its place, many are “pulling forward” a form of spirituality that prioritises inner growth, mental resilience, and personal experience over rigid doctrines or formal rituals. Within the Indian context, this shift is often a redefinition rather than an abandonment, as the modern “Desi Dude” seeks to blend ancient wisdom with science and practical modern tools to find clarity.

This transition is akin to moving from a rigid, predetermined railway track to a personal compass. At the same time, the landscape of tradition remains, and the individual gains the freedom to navigate the journey based on their own internal sense of direction and purpose.

Influencers of Good [top]

Social media has opened the door to a new kind of influence—one that challenges the dominance of traditional advertising once controlled by those with vast resources. In the past, corporations without ethical boundaries could simply buy the endorsement of movie stars or sports icons, shaping public opinion with little regard for values.

Today, however, a different wave of influencers is emerging. Many use their platforms not for profit or political gain, but to inspire positive change. Free from the grip of corporate or partisan agendas, these voices harness authenticity and community to push back against greed, proving that influence can be rooted in purpose rather than power.

Consequences of Not Addressing Definitions [top]

If we fail to define masculinity with clarity and intention, the cost will be paid across every measure of wellness – by men of all ages, backgrounds, and circumstances. Without a destination and a plan, the odds of arriving at a healthy place are slim. Instead, powerful forces—economic, technological, cultural, and psychological—will push individuals into outcomes that range from mildly corrosive to catastrophically destructive.

For the modern Desi Dude, the absence of non‑religious, non‑political guidance leaves identity exposed to manipulation. These forces do not pause to ask if a man is ready or supported; they simply apply pressure. And when identity is undefined, it is not neutral—it is hijacked by whatever incentives, fears, and narratives dominate the moment. In that vacuum, imitation replaces intention, reaction replaces reflection, and short‑term coping replaces long‑term direction.

The warning is stark: if we do not seize the responsibility to define masculinity ourselves, others will do it for us – and they will not have our best interests at heart.

What Must be Addressed Next? [top]

The focus today was on the need for defining the ideal Desi Dude—not through rigid or narrow boundaries, but in a way that embraces diverse perspectives, interests, and aspirations, while centering on the measures of wellness that help individuals and communities thrive.

This article has not attempted to define what a Desi Dude should be. That omission is deliberate. Before offering any definition, it is necessary to understand why one is needed at all—and what happens when we leave that task to markets, media, ideology, or chance.

In a future conversation, I will propose a working definition of the Desi Dude for the 21st century, not as a rigid identity, but as a compass. One that can be questioned, refined, and tested against reality, rather than imposed or inherited without thought.

Take-Home Message [top]

In a world reshaped by technology, media, and shifting gender roles, the modern Desi Dude is at risk of drifting into confusion, anxiety, or worse—being hijacked by forces that thrive on greed, imitation, and short‑term impulses. Societies are always shaped by how they define masculinity, and if we fail to do so consciously, others will do it for us—with consequences that fracture families, destabilize communities, and erode identity.

The uncomfortable truth is this: manhood will not wait politely for us to catch up. If we don’t seize the chance to craft a balanced, resilient model of masculinity—one rooted in wellness, responsibility, and growth—then external pressures will fill the void with toxic substitutes. This is not just a cultural debate; it is a battle for the future of men and the societies they shape. The question is whether we will lead that definition—or surrender it.

Parting Message [top]

Whether you are in Lahore, Lagos, London, or Lucknow, you will appreciate the need for structure to avoid chaos. Change is welcomed when it is positive. Driving without direction is unlikely to get us to where we will be happier.

It is your smallest of habits that define who you are today and who you will be tomorrow. If everything you do is consistent with your core beliefs and desires, then a long and healthy life of joy is pretty much guaranteed to be yours. If you would like detailed guidance, you know how to reach me. If you found this useful, please do share it with others.

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.