Sorry for the interruption to the travelogues. Rukawat ke liye khed hai. Today is I think the best day to write this post, so I’ll go ahead anyways. Regular programming with respect to my pravaasa will resume either later tonight or tomorrow, depending upon my enthu levels.
If you are a sports lover, you’ll notice that there is a huge gap between early twenties and mid-twenties. The gap between twenty three and twenty four is huge, something that is otherwise much under-appreciated. If someone makes his international debut at twenty three, he is touted as a promising youngster. A year later, and he is no longer a youngster and even risks being called a late bloomer (this is definitely the case with respect to cricket. it may be different for different sports).
I made this transition exactly a year ago, and duly started feeling old. Things that used to excite me earlier have stopped exciting me. That kiddish look seems to have suddenly disappeared from my face. In a number of situations i feel I’m past my prime. I’ve suddenly started feeling mature in certain matters. A number of things that I used to really enjoy are now dismissed saying “kids’ stuff”. I feel old whenever I recall that I’m on the wrong side of twenty three.
The only thing that mattered when I turned eighteen was that I could now apply for a drivers’ license. When I turned twenty, and thus out of my teens, I felt nothing. Twenty one, too didn’t evoke any special emotions. It was just another day. Just another year. Twenty four, however, seems to have been a landmark. Something has definitely changed.
Today I make another transition, one that is more generally accepted (compared to twenty four) to be an important milestone. It’s the age when in ancient India, people stepped out of the Brahmacharya and into the? Grihastaashrama (Needless to say, my mom has already started putting pressure on me to make the said transition, and says she’ll intensify the bride-hunt soon). In case of? anniversaries, it’s called the silver jubilee. It’s also the quarter century. Fifteen years ago, as the Babri Masjid was getting pulled down, I was celebrating my tenth birthday.
I’m celebrating the occasion with a new belt and a new pair of spectacles. The old pair was three birthdays old and showed no signs of wearing. So I decided I needed a good reason to stop wearing it, and have spent some six grand on this new pair. This one has slightly thicker sticks at the side, which means that I can’t look out of the corner of my eyes, as I used to. In fact, i feel like a horse. I’ll hopefully get used to them quickly. As for the belt, the old one had snapped a couple of days back when I pulled too hard at it. It’s a purchase made out of sheer necessity.
Oh, and for good measure, I’ve shaved off my sideburns. I look completely different now. I can hardly recognize myself in the mirror. The new specs don’t help, either. I should post before and after snaps sometime.
And on another note, at least one of orkut and me have become unpopular. Two years ago, I remember, my orkut scrap count had grown from 200 to 500 on my birthday! There was a similar effect last year. Some huge increase. However in the last 24 hours, I’ve received some fifty scraps or so. And it’s not as if there is mass migration to facebook. I’ve received all of five HBD walls there. Probably social networking as we know it has seen its peak.
Cricinfo tells me that I share my birthday with Freddie Flintoff. I’m extremely proud of this. I also find that I share my birthday with the new Indian hockey coach Ric Charlesworth. Then there is the former cricket umpire Peter Willey, and a couple of other half-famous people. And it seems it’s a holiday in Maharashtra today. Ambedkar’s death anniversary.
Happy birthday to me!