Over half of India's population is under the age of 25, and a growing percentage of these young people now live in cities. How do these educated young Indians view their country's entrance into the world's nuclear club, let alone what U.S. policy makers fret will be a new nuclear arms race on the subcontinent? PNS correspondent Madhavan Pillai is a 23-year-old journalist who writes a weekly column for Mumbai's MidDay newspaper.

MUMBAI, INDIA -- Sameer Bhosale sits on a concrete bench with a cap on his head. On the cap is written "Nike" in green. It is a fake cap. His Higher Secondary Certificate exams over, he is doing particularly nothing nowadays.

I came to the point. "What do you think about the nuke blasts?"

He asked me how many did we drop.

I was a little surprised. I told him five. Sameer Bhosale pondered. He said, "It's good. They did well to drop them." I asked him why. Sameer Bhosale shook his head, "That I don't know. But it is good. How many did they drop?"

I told him Pakistan dropped six. He asked me why they had to drop one more. It was my turn to say I don't know.

He was a little puzzled. Then we talked a little about this and that. Then he asked me what would happen if they dropped one on Mumbai. I said that since he lives towards the northern end (in a suburb called Borivali) and chances are good that the bomb would be dropped either in the business center called Nariman Point at the extreme south or at the Tarapore atomic plant towards the east, he would not melt.

"We will probably die of radiation," I told Sameer Bhosale. This set him pondering again. "What luck I don't have a railway pass to those places," he said. He thought it was funny, I thought it was funny. Both of us laughed. A friend of his sitting nearby told him that the atom bomb is not a "lavangi." A lavangi is a firecracker burst in a Hindu festival called Diwali.

The friend thought it was funny, Sameer thought it was funny. They both laughed. I did not want to be left out. So I laughed along with them.

Melquor Rodrigues is an East Indian living in an East Indian colony. His forefathers were converted by the Portuguese. At 22, he is four years older than Sameer Bhosale. And as a law student, a little more opinionated. He did not wear a cap when I saw him.

"I don't know. I don't care actually. Nobody cares. Not my sister, her friends, their friends. India's budget is the most mystic thing that anybody can come across. But it interests me more because if oil prices increase, our pockets decrease." She recently brought a car, a blue Maruti. I wished her a good ride. Many in colleges have bikes and cars now.

A random survey by an Indian newspaper of 200 persons between age 16-22 recently showed that 72 percent felt that the blasts were required, only 26 percent felt that it was not a political strategy, and 75 percent felt the government's popularity would increase. In short, though the tests were done to make somebody popular, they were a good thing.

Santosh Nair, a management student who will probably sell toothpaste next year, says that there is euphoria but we shouldn't push the point to put our country in the wrong light. "We have shown that we can protect ourselves. We will not be bullied," he says.

If the survey is anything to be believed, about 55 percent don't feel there will be a nuclear war. On the TV when they show the odd demonstration against the blasts, the people holding placards are all old people. The minimum age to be part of the fraternity appears to be 35.

Shailaja Chitnis is a worried young woman. Having finished her Engineering degree, and planning to pursue graduate studies abroad, she is worried about her U.S. visa, post-sanctions. Right now she is having tea.

"It could affect a lot of careers," she said. I said I was sorry.

Then she said, "The money could have been better spent on feeding people." Her friend, Neeta Pillai, sat next to her in the canteen. Neeta was a little angry. She asked Shailaja how that was possible. In the past 50 years very few Indians have been fed with government money. Most money, Neeta told Shailaja, feeds the middlemen. "That does not mean that we waste money on bombs."

"We finally managed to get something out of the money," replied Neeta.

"Like what?" asked Shailaja.

"Like pride. Like security," replied Neeta.

"Against whom?"

"Against China."

"Why?"

"They have the bombs."

"So has Pakistan now."

I would have liked to stay longer. I did not want to go out either. The sun was hot -- 2,700 people have died from it so far this year in the country. I remembered Sameer Bhosale. The sun wouldn't worry him. He had the cap for that.