The New Mumbai Doesn’t Want to Follow. It Wants to Be Followed!
(New Mumbai here means NEW Generation Mumbai & not Navi Mumbai)
Below is a summary of a conversation over dinner at a restaurant in New Mumbai that got me thinking. The table had me (43), my wife (whose age, understandably, cannot be disclosed!), my elder son (19), and my younger son (15). Four people & two generations of thinking…
Read on.
A ₹15 crore apartment in New Mumbai anywhere, it can be Bandra or even Sanpada. A ₹20,000 dinner once a month. A luxury car outside a restaurant. A weekend in Dubai. An Instagram feed that looks perfectly curated.
Welcome to a certain version of New Mumbai
But ask a 19-year-old what success means today, and the answer may be very different from what we, as parents, would have given.
It isn’t necessarily a political position.
It isn’t necessarily a government job.
Increasingly, it is visibility.
Followers. Reach. Influence. A startup. A personal brand. A reel that suddenly gets 500,000 views. And that tells us something important about how Mumbai’s definition of power is changing. The Old Formula Is Changing
For decades, the formula was simple:
Money → Contacts → Politics → Influence
The new formula increasingly looks like:
Money → Lifestyle → Followers → Personal Brand → Influence
And politicians are desperately trying to enter that second world. They are on Instagram. They make reels. They post photographs from gyms, airports, events and meetings. But there is one problem.
Gen Z knows the difference between having followers and having influence.
A politician may have thousands of followers and struggle to get genuine engagement. Meanwhile, a 24-year-old creator can post something from a café in New Mumbai and reach hundreds of thousands of people before lunch. That is the new reality. Walk through New Mumbai on a Saturday evening. You will find the Gujarati entrepreneur, the Sindhi businessman, the Punjabi restaurateur, the Marathi shopper, the Muslim vendor, the startup founder, the investment banker, the actor, the influencer and the young professional who has just returned from London.
Different backgrounds.
Different ambitions.
But increasingly, they share something:
They are building a life — and a public image — at the same time.
A restaurant isn’t just dinner anymore.
It can become content.
A holiday isn’t just a holiday.
It becomes a story.
A wedding isn’t just a wedding.
It becomes a production.
Even success itself has become something that is increasingly displayed, documented and consumed. But perhaps we are being unfair when we call Gen Z superficial. They aren’t necessarily obsessed with money. They are obsessed with options. They want to build companies at 25. Change careers at 28. Travel. Invest. Create. Work remotely. Become influencers. Start podcasts. Or simply refuse to live the life their parents expected them to live.And yes, marriage — on their terms and at the right time — if they find the right partner!
That is a very different definition of ambition.
The ₹5 Crore Question
Here is where lifestyle quietly becomes politics.
If someone is willing to spend ₹5 crore on a home, ₹50,000 on dinner and ₹20,000 on a weekend experience, what do they expect from Mumbai in return?
Good roads?
Reliable transport?
Clean streets?
Safety?
Better nightlife?
Public spaces?
Efficient civic services?
A city where their children can actually breathe? Suddenly, the supposedly “apolitical” generation has very political expectations.. They may never read a 20-page manifesto. But inconvenience them in traffic, cancel their favourite concert or leave their neighbourhood roads broken — and watch what happens on social media. They may not attend a political rally but will go for protests against what they feel is not right.
Perhaps Gen Z isn’t apolitical. Perhaps it simply doesn’t speak the language of old politics. Politicians Should Understand this! The political class has spent years trying to understand social media. But many still use it as another broadcasting platform.
They post.
They announce.
They congratulate.
They inaugurate.
They speak.
Gen Z, however, doesn’t want another television channel inside its phone.
It wants:
Authenticity.
Speed. Humour. Interaction.
And above all:
“Why should I care?”
A young Mumbaikar doesn’t necessarily care that a politician attended seventeen meetings. Show them what changed because of those seventeen meetings. Don’t tell them you are working for Mumbai.
Show them Mumbai becoming better.
That is the difference.
From Contacts to Followers.
Our parents asked:
“Whom do you know?”
Gen Z asks:
“How many people know you?”
That may sound superficial, but it represents a fundamental shift in how influence is created. A 23-year-old with 300,000 genuine followers can potentially have more cultural influence than someone with decades of institutional experience. And that should make traditional power structures uncomfortable. Because influence is no longer controlled exclusively by politicians, newspapers, television channels, industrialists or celebrities.
It is increasingly distributed.
The Real Change The new Mumbai doesn’t necessarily want your politics. It wants your attention.
And once it has your attention, it wants to turn that attention into something:
A business
A brand.
A community.
A career.
Sometimes, even political power.
So dismissing Gen Z as “kids who are only interested in Instagram” may be one of the biggest mistakes older generations can make. Instagram isn’t the point.
Influence is.
The reel isn’t the point.
Reach is.
The follower count isn’t necessarily the point.
The ability to move people is. The generation that grew up watching politicians, celebrities and businessmen chase influence has now discovered that it can create influence of its own.So perhaps the question isn’t:
“How do we get Gen Z to follow us?”
It is:
“What are we doing that makes Gen Z want to follow us?”
Because the new Mumbai doesn’t want to follow.
It wants to be followed.
Vikrant Meena Hemant Joshi.
