Sanskriti Meets Substack: Is Gen Z Is Romanticising Indian Academia?

A Gen Z girl in traditional attire, immersed in writing music beside a piano, with a curious penguin companion by her side.

It’s 4:17 PM in Delhi University, and the canteen smells like samosas left too long in oil and over-brewed chai. A boy with rimmed glasses leans across the table, quoting Camus in half-Hindi, half-English, while someone scribbles lyrics in a Camlin notebook.

A girl in a faded FabIndia kurta folds a poem into fourths, tucks it into a Penguin Classic, and slips it into her jhola. Her fingers are stained with ink. Her playlist: Lata Mangeshkar, Coke Studio, and one quiet Ghazal her grandfather loved.

Nobody here is looking for clout. They’re searching for meaning—in old books, in Marxist zines, in slow Sunday conversations about Tagore under neem trees.

And if you listen closely, you can almost hear it, the static of a ceiling fan spinning above a dusty classroom. The rustle of yellowed pages annotated in blue Reynolds ink. The clink of a RimZim bottle on a college canteen table. And somewhere in the distance—a heated debate about Amitav Ghosh versus Arundhati Roy unfolding in broken Hindi-English.

Welcome to Indian Academia Core—a quietly viral aesthetic that’s less about Ivy League polish and more about the layered textures of Indian intellect. Romantic, rigorous, and softly revolutionary, this is Gen Z’s love letter to the lost charm of old-school knowledge.

It isn’t new. It’s remembered.

Where the Mind is Without Fear: The Longing for Thoughtfulness

Bustling street scene in Old Delhi, framed by historic architecture and vibrant market life, with the dome of Fatehpuri Masjid in the background.

This isn’t dark academia with a Delhi filter—it’s deeper. Less about melancholy, more about meaning. Less elite, more emotional.

There’s something distinctly Indian about the longing at the heart of this aesthetic: to know, to speak, to write, to remember. You see it in Charulata, where Madhabi Mukherjee reads by the window, eyes searching the horizon not for romance, but for relevance. You feel it in Malgudi Days, where Swami’s school life is stitched with slowness and imagination. And you hear it in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi—when politics, poetry, and passion meet in the canteens of JNU.

This aesthetic lives in the hush of library stacks and the chaos of protests. It smells of sandalwood and second-hand books. It lingers in the middle ground between intellect and instinct—between Sanskriti and Substack.

How Indian Academia Became Aesthetic Again

A girl in an elegant outfit browses the philosophy section of a library, reaching for a book on a neatly organized shelf.

Swipe through Pinterest, and you’ll find boards titled “North Campus in Winter”, “Linen + Literature”, or “Romanticising the Indian Library”. Scroll through reels that look like they were shot on film: girls in handloom saris jotting notes on Rajmohan’s Wife; boys in Veshti trousers quoting Ghalib with quiet pride.

And YouTube? It’s an archive of aesthetic study vlogs scored by lo-fi Hindustani instrumentals and overlaid with Tamil poetry subtitles.

This is not cosplay. It’s a return. To a kind of living where thoughts took their time, and intellect had texture.

At its heart, this isn’t about being scholarly—it’s about looking like you live inside a sepia-toned literary novel, with underlines in your copy of The Namesake, and a notebook filled with Urdu couplets.

Think:

• The faded bulletin boards of St. Stephen’s.

• A thick red pen leaking into your jhola.

• The half-sleepy, half-idealistic glow of a 9:30 AM Indian Philosophy class.

• The awkward silence before someone recites their favourite Faiz poem at open mic night.

  
  

It’s intellect romanticised—the way Dead Poets Society met Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi in the corridors.

Textures, Tones, and Tokens: A Sensory Guide

This is an aesthetic of residue: chalk on fingers, chai stains on books, the soft sigh of paper against paper.

Two girls in traditional attire enjoy a cozy and intimate conversation by the window of a train, with raindrops painting a serene backdrop.

• Palette: Dusty rose, ink blue, sandalwood brown, muted mustard

• Fabrics: Mulmul, khadi, handloom silks, crumpled cotton with bookish scent

• Icons: Tagore’s “Shesher Kobita”, Ghosh’s “Shadow Lines”, a letterpress bookmark, fountain pens from Dilli Haat

• Flavours: Nimbu soda from the law faculty canteen, Rooh Afza with crushed ice, stale samosas wrapped in newspaper

  
  

Even the soundtrack is layered:

• Charulata’s haunting piano notes

• College Street rickshaw bells

• A boy rehearsing Mahashweta Devi lines before a theatre audition

• Rain on tin roofs, just outside the hostel window

  
  

This is the ambient poetry of young Indian thought.

Two girls dressed in elegant traditional attire explore a colourful array of books in a vibrant bookstore.

Why Gen Z Is Falling In Love With It

In a digital world, academia core offers something tactile. Slowness. Imperfection. Thoughtfulness.

It feels like rebellion against hyper-optimised hustle culture. Here, success isn’t about scale—it’s about sensibility. Substack newsletters written in Urdu. Book club zines stapled by hand. Instagram bios that read “PhD in romanticising life.”

From Tagore to Substack: A New Kind of Thoughtfulness

A detailed sketch depicts a contemplative man sitting among towering stacks of books, capturing a moment of study or creativity.

Today’s Gen Z isn’t just reading. They’re writing. Essays. Substacks. Letters to their younger selves. They’re forming modern mandalis online, with newsletters that read like private conversations in public.

They’re rewatching Masaan, not just for Vicky Kaushal, but for the poetry. They’re reading Bhisham Sahni, quoting Kabir, and secretly buying Rohinton Mistry over BookTok bestsellers.

They don’t want influence. They want intimacy. And they’re finding it in thought.

A girl in a serene bookstore carefully selects a book from the towering shelves, surrounded by a rich tapestry of stories and knowledge.

Indian Academia Core is not a visual trend. It’s a felt one. It lives between pages, in pauses, in the smell of ink and the softness of old cotton. It’s Mira Nair with margins. Satyajit Ray with side notes.

It’s where poetry is proof of life. It’s where intellect is not branded—but beloved. It’s where Sanskriti meets Substack.

And in 2025, that might just be the most beautiful thing to romanticise.