A lawyer who moonlights as an hotelier; IIT grads pursuing their love for the arts; a global training head exploring life as a tattoo artist; the idea of settling down with a stable job does not hold the same appeal as it did in the 80s or 90s.

We are in the midst of a cultural shift where men today are better equipped and open to take up alternative career paths. It's a cultural shift not many millennials could've imagined at the turn of the century but here we are – living in a society where a man is defined, not by the salary he pockets but the impact of his ideas.

Let's be real and call the mundane 9-5 routine what it really is – the mirror of mediocrity. And so, the modern Indian man neither cares for it nor does he want to be associated with it. He's pretty comfortable in pursuing what his heart desires and therefore makes his own path, no matter if it's an outlier in the collective wisdom of society.

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Take for example eminent policy lawyer, poet and writer Sumant Batra who set up a boutique hotel in the Himalayas. His summer house 'Te Aroha' serves a blend of traditional architecture and contemporary comforts to his guests, something that many people in the city crave for.

“Live your dream. Life in small towns can be blissful as long as you are able to break away from the shackles of the stereotypical life of the cities,” says Sumant. And he's right. A job or a profession without a broader sense of purpose is just too routine and wasteful. The millennial generation understands that and is therefore not inclined to live a life that's machined akin to checking the boxes and moving onto someone else's idea of a good life, just for the sake of peer validation.

And it's not just financially secure middle-aged men kicking the bucket of conventional roles. It's the idea of the young Indian male taking the plunge into the unknown that excites, and paves the way for kids not wanting to waste four years of their lives in an engineering college dorm only to realise later that it's not really meant for them.

Devendra Purbiya, an IIT graduate, is one such soul of that ilk. On a trip to South Korea he discovered his love for photography while capturing his trip on a DSLR. He took his hobby to another level and started 'A Photo a Day' project on Facebook. Navigating a new career with zero experience is never easy but he stuck with it and today Purbiya is one of the most sought after wedding photographers in the country.

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Nobody disputes that new age men are more confident of putting themselves out into the real world and being vulnerable. That confidence however, no matter the opportunities, is a product of the digital age where there's no dearth of platforms to showcase what they are capable of. Even then, breaking the mould takes courage, something that's evident in the stand-up culture today.

Zakir Khan, one of the better known stand-up comedians in India at the moment, started small. His sketches were funny and content, original. Yet, it took some work before he could really make it big in the mainstream stand-up scene. Khan first got in touch with me back in 2015 when he was just coming up and getting recognized for his first few sketches. At that time, getting noticed by big digital publications was difficult because written content, rather than videos, was king. In various conversations from 2015 through 2016, Zakir persisted and asked for help in featuring his videos. At a time when stand-up comedy couldn't have been considered a full-time job, Zakir made sure that major publications at least noticed his work, even if they decided to never feature it. The audacity with which he owned his content in an industry that was still in its nascent stages shows how new age men are not only unafraid of their bold career choices but sometimes, like Zakir Khan, they can break new grounds and introduce a whole new audience to the industry.

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Congruent career trajectories are a thing of the past and we, the modern Indian men are aware of our capabilities. The biggest resource for the new age man to be successful is his own passion of carving a niche of his own. Be it sculpting a piece of art or running an ink shop, the cubicle is no longer my workstation and I'm not scared of it anymore.

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Photo: © MensXP/Disha Bhatia (Main Image)