New Delhi, April 25 -- A few years ago, I found myself in the middle of a conversation with my office mates, all graduates of universities such as Symbiosis and New York Film Academy, about Martin Scorsese and his cinema. I knew enough to smile and nod but not enough to riff. And in that moment, I knew exactly what was happening. Everyone at the table had grown up speaking a dialect I was just beginning to learn: cultural shorthand. Not English. But something slipperier.

I am a final-year B.Com dropout from an aided college in Mumbai's suburbs. I worked as a welder (which wasn't a coincidence; my Lohar caste has always been in metalwork, and my father ran a small fabrication shop in Jogeshwari) before joining a pop culture content compan...