An offbeat smash-hit Hindi movie, Chak De! India - loosely translated as C’mon India! - has become a cheerleading anthem across India, from celebrating sporting victories to stock-market bull runs.

In a country seriously hooked on movies, sports and politics, Chak De! has struck a chord since its release in August and visitors might be forgiven for thinking the film’s title sound track is

India’s signature tune, representing a country on a roll.

Not missing the bandwagon, India’s ruling Congress party announced its slogan as “Chak De Congress’ for elections in the western Indian state of Gujarat. And the Birla Institute of Management Technology, Delhi, organized an event with the theme Chak De, focusing on team building and leadership.

The feel-good movie, also released internationally, is based on a true story about the passionate struggles of India’s national women’s field hockey team.

Amid the hoo-hah, Chak De! India offers a jarring clash of contradictions in a country famous for its extreme contrasts. The gung-ho chest-thumping sounds a surreal disconnect between billionaire Indians splurging on US$60 million private jets as birthday gifts (industrialist Mukesh Ambani) and an India in which the majority of people struggle for survival with minimal drinking water, sanitation, electricity, roads, schools and health services.

Yet India does throb with this distinct, unfamiliar pulse of energy that Chak De! captures, more so in a generation born in the 1980s, growing up in a India confidently opening up to the world in the 1990s and moving into leadership seats in the late 2000s.

Demographically, India has the largest below-40 population in the world, and is expected to keep this position for the next 40 years. A prevalent view holds that the current young generation is the most vibrant, positive, self-confident the country has seen since independence in 1947.

Brand marketers have tuned into the difference, and say the change is huge. “There’s a big difference in outlook as youngsters today have far more opportunities than we did,” Rajiv Raja, popular jazz flutist and executive creative director of a leading advertising agency, Bates India, told Asia Times Online. “They live more for the moment, for today than tomorrow, change jobs more often than we did, and want to cram more into one single life. We had to make best use [in an India] of scarce resources while the younger generation now makes the widest possible use of ample resources.”

Bates factored the difference in attitude in its successful campaign for a life insurance product, Tata AIG, with their latest advertisement featuring a 90-year-old man regretting not having invested for the future when he was 30. “He regrets having spent more time watching his boss’ company grow, rather than his own kids grow,” says Raja.