ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author considers children typical of the lower income 70 percent of India: the working-classes – some poor, some very poor – urban, small town, rural-to-urban migrants and rural labourers. One could potentially catalogue many different types of 'average' daily routines, in which labour or school or friendship or media play differential roles. Routines involve choices on the part of children, and in line with the author's account of routine, children are presumed to have reflexive consciousness about and responsibility for how they inhabit their everyday lives. Even when all children and teenagers are depicted as being 'born digital', old media retains and has strengthened its salience for the Indian working class children who can access it. Scrolling channels is a moment of leisure which comes across as boring and disappointing, while the boredom of school is challenged by a liking for English and the good English teacher.