Well, depends on how you look at it, right? I am the eternal optimist(even in my moments of pessimism), but I'm unable to think of myself as 25 years young. I'm feeling ancient. It's been a quarter of a century since I landed on earth. For the first time in my life, I tried to postpone away my birthday. I felt no mirth and joy of being another year older. What a contrast to the time I was counting down hours and minutes to my 18th birthday.
Feeling ancient is not surprising, considering my situation. For starters, I am 2 years older than all my classmates. I feel like a wizened old cow in a stable full of young stallions. If you're going to tell me it's all in my mind, spare me the words. I've seen it in the attitude of people around me. People are just waiting for a reason to refer to my age again and again. To put it in perspective - My poor phone back in India used to splinter into a hundred pieces each time it fell down from it's perch between my ear and helmet, or from my pocket onto the road beneath a kerosene-fume-spewing autorickshaw or accidentally dropped into the lift shaft in office; each time it used to switch back on faithfully once I'd put it back on and I used to seize the opportunity to say "Nokia, man. Very sturdy". Likewise, each time I blurt out a wrong answer in class or a stupid idea, I can hear rude whispers behind me to the effect of "Oldie ya.. 1984 model" or "Old syllabus dude.. What did you expect the oldie to say??" :( I mean, :(. And I was just 24 when all this happened. And now I'm a year older.
Try as I did to postpone the inevitable, but finally did arrive my 25th birthday. Not once, but twice(one was my date of birth, and the other was according to my Hindu star). Disembodied voices on the phone boomed out congratulations and wishes on my silver-jubilee birthday. Friends on orkut and FaceBook pounded me with wishes on my birthday. Birthday emails from friends, ex-friends and ex-best-friends, ex-colleagues, etc. sure made my email inbox a cheery place. Ganeshaspeaks.com, tarotastrology.com and cyberastro.com were not to be left too far behind in wishing me and offering me their products and services for a hefty discount(only because it was my birthday, mind you!!). One of the sites gave me two gifts(We're sorry, but you have Mangal Dosha in your horoscope and Congratulations, you do not have Shani Dosha in your horoscope!! Bah. What is there to be sorry about telling me I have Mangal Dosha? I am told that Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan too have Mangal Dosha. Don't you see, morons, that Mangal Dosha afflicts only the rich and the famous?)
Thankfully, folks at home did not rub it in too deep. My star-birthday(yeah, I'm a star!!) was celebrated with a sumptuous feast prepared by mom, delicious and creamy pink payasam by sis and crunchy bajjis by dad. A yummy choca-mocha-crunch cake kicked off my birth anniversary, followed by a sumptous feast, topped off with delicious dabeli paav from sis. Wow. In between, however, my birthday was celebrated in spectacular fashion over the interceding weekend(with rich Italian food on the first day, a boat cruise and cycle-tour the next day, punctuated with a grand pizza and topped off by stir-fresh Mongolian spead. Ooooh. Awesome. The only negative aspect was senior family members pronouncing me of marriageable age(What a load of you know what!!). That raises the next sore point.
I used to think that only girls endured impetuses towards marriage(forgive the gender profiling, but this is what I had heard and seen happening). Oh how sorely mistaken I was. A couple of weeks back, there was suddenly a spate of people asking me when I was planning to get married, when I was planning to settle down, etc. Well all those questions, encouragements and motivations just gained momentum in the light of my 25th birthday. Many people who had studied with me(sat on the same bench, read from the same book, ate from the same tiffin carrier, got runny noses from each other, got belted by the same teachers, that sort of thing) suddenly had a feeling that they were young and barely 18 while I had somehow, mysteriously overtaken them and gotten to be an old and senile 25. Just because their 25th birthday happens next month. Well, bad luck folks, I have absolutely no intention of succumbing to any such settling down in my foreseeable future(never, if I have my way). I'm too fond of a life where I get to be myself, where I'm responsible for no other, where I'm responsible to no other.
I had seriously considered giving myself a special gift for my birthday(being the gadget freak that I am), but somehow I lost the drive to actually go and indulge myself. I have sunken into this feeling where I am content at just looking at the devices online. Hope I will get over this abnormality pretty soon. Well, on that note, I have stepped into the 26th year of my illustrious existence on this planet. May I have many more birthdays, complete with cakes and feasts and bajjis and dabeli pavs, may I have all of these and much more friends to remind me of my birthday every year and may this blog last to see more of my birthdays. Amen.
2 comments:
Ohhhh Gosh i did not realize it was your "SILVER JUBILEEE""" !!! Man, i thought you were in your late 20s... :P :P hahahaha just kidding....I too haven crossed the 25 line yet ;) la la laa :D :D Yapppyyyy YApppyyy silverly jubiliant Birthday!!! :D :D
@Divya: You too, Brutus!! :( Yeah yeah your birthday is just down the line.. you just wait!!
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