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As Uttar Pradesh goes to polls, CNN-IBN examines the lives and expectations of a group that has the most at stake from the future of the state - the youth. In a special series, we meet the Young And Restless In Uttar Pradesh.

Varanasi: To survive in the political akhara of Uttar Pradesh politics, being a boxer becomes necessary sometimes.

At least this is what some youngsters in the state have discovered.

With elections closing in, some young men hope to follow in their family tradition by getting hired by political parties as bodyguards.

Their grandfathers did it, and so did their fathers. So for the Generation Next’s, it is an unquestioning obedience to their ancestral trade.

But as they now are now finding out, their fathers had it relatively easy. "Politicians keep promising us they will do some thing for us but after the elections they all forget about it," says a boxer Rajnikant Choudhury.

When Niyaaz and Yamin Ansari followed their father to the weaving looms at the age of 15 they had hopes of revolutionising the Benarasi sari business.

It's been more than a decade since then. Today Benarasi saris are no longer fashionable among women.

In the last six months, the only time the business did relatively well was when orders started pouring in after Aishwarya Rai ordered dozens of Benarasi saris for her wedding trousseau.

But the Ansari brothers are angry. They say Amar Singh is close to the Bachchans, why couldn't he do some thing for the weavers and the dropping sales?

“The government needs to do some thing to support the weavers. Otherwise every body is leaving the city and going somewhere else,” says Niyaz.

Others like Madhav Chaurasia - who sells betel leaves in Varanasi's Paan Dariba - knows his life will end where it started.

While he wants to carry forward the legacy of the famous Benarasi paan, he wonders why he's sticking on in Varanasi.

But moving to another state poses another problem: this is the only job he knows. What else will he do?

In this city almost every young man follows in the footsteps of his grandfather and father making sure that the circle never gets broken. But while tradition sustains, it also stunts.

These young people are all expected to step into the shoes of their forefathers and to do any thing else is unimaginable.

Yet these family businesses are neglected, devoid of a future. In the temple city of Varanasi, the young are trapped. They are ambitious to do more, but the family trade holds them back.

So when young priests like Aravind Pandey try to wonder as to why he chose to carry his father's legacy forward, he reminds himself of some scriptures that say: no other dharma or karma for me, this is what God wanted me to do and this is what I will always do.

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/politics/04_2007/for-up-youth-its-inheritanc...