Gifts and girls, what else one wants in life? Sadly, no more
girls for me but I am sure gifts still make me happy. They’ll sure make me saying
‘Keep Walking’.
If true words are not spoken, I guess this is what getting
old means. You start talking to yourself, comparing your life with the debit
& credit statement coloumn marked in any bank passbook.
I am going to be 25 though (As she said, make your 25th
Remembrable), but I already feel like that comparing these days to those days!
Yes birthdays are a bitch precisely because of this
disconnect between what “should be” and “what is” between 4u.johny &
Birthday Boy_@_25.
Genre: Fiction :-)
4u.johny: First of all sir congratulations on becoming
‘Twenty Five’. Yeah you are 25* now, Some may say that congratulating you for
this is like congratulating Twelve o’clock for coming after Eleven o’clock, or
congratulating an Apple broken from its stem for dropping to the ground or
congratulating ‘Mr. Nandlal’s’ son for taking over ‘Nandlal and Sons’.
On becoming ‘Twent Five’, Your Friends, Colleagues,
Relatives would definitely congratulate you on this occasion. But, here I am on
your 25th to quote you not ‘being human’ but “being negative, asking Sir, what
is your weakness?” No Sir, I am asking “What is your strength?” As a matter of
fact, I am desperately looking for it, on your so called 25th.
Also, I read your Post, the Post that you delivered on the
blog exactly a year ago…err…It was resembling more lika a chintan shivir of any
national party.
And so I ask, what did you do even after attaining an age of
‘Twenty Five’? I could not find you anywhere infront of your mother, because on
occasion of Posting ‘On becoming a Husband’, you are still stucked at Posting
‘On Becoming 25’. Nowhere did I find you expressing your opinion infront of
your family being an elder son. Never did I see you taking responsibility both
in home and business, the hallmark, what people say of an elder son. This may
be just something I missed the very heart of problem, No ‘Honda City’ till now?
Your situation sir Reminds me of a great 90s song here, “Kya
cheez ho tum khud tumhe maloom nahi hai”
Sir…..??
Sir….??
He sighed and leaned back on his chair....
Birthday Boy_@_25: If you had met me Five or Ten years ago,
I wouldn’t blame you for predicting that I would be now ‘only 25’, not very well off. But here I am, sitting in front
of this space that I own.
I don’t have much wisdom in me, in spite of my age. But one
thing I did learn. That there is something wrong about the way we are brought
up. I don’t mean my generation in particular. I mean human beings in general.
We are pushed too far, too fast, So much that a person
hasn’t yet lived out a quarter of his life, and he already has an idea about ‘Success,
failure, necessity, marriage, children and other odds.
Why don’t we take it slow?
It will take you some time to learn about yourself, see who
you truly are. The problem is that even before you know much about yourself,
you are trapped. You have chosen what you want to do, and your father has selected
what you have to do, and you are stuck.
Sometime in my early 20s, I came to the realization that
most of my most critical life decisions had never truly been taken after
considered deliberation, at least nothing remotely resembling the ‘should I
this or should I that’ decision paralysis. I studied engineering, not because I
particularly wanted to or felt it was a good fit for my career, but because
that’s what ‘all the good boys do’. When it came time to do a Job or Masters, I
again went with the flow. All my smart friends had taken the same decision and
well, all of them couldn’t be wrong. I never gave a second’s thought.
Now, on approaching 25th the pressure to listen to my parents
had slowly been increasing for me, situation like 10 dot balls in a T20 match.
What started out as odd conversations with my mother like “So-and-so got
married, they were also of your age”. But then I have come to realize through
bitter experience, that it is better to duck some bouncers than to try to hook
them.
I did not regret some of the decisions taken without
thought, And so I am determined not to repeat this mistake of mindlessly
checking off a box in a checklist when the next big space in the road comes.
It’s age after all. I am not twenty four any more you know.
4u.johny: Are you sir not being too simplistic? Which is
when I realized that this simplicity is actually your complexity.
If I have said more than I am supposed to say, kindly
forgive me. Blame it on my age. Or my lack of it. Whatever works.
So congratulations again, dear sir!! Congratulations for
just being you.
Birthday Boy_@_25: I know this is ‘Just another day’. And
most important thing about this another day is the realization of how little
everything really matters.
Things however have changed now. Now, I am supposed to
dismiss a birthday wish with a shy “thank you” as if any kind of attention
sounds embarrassing for a twenty five year old bakchod boy like me.
Birthday Boy_@_25 wears a hat and blows a whistle for a kind
attention and dedication of words from Mr. Rahul Kunal, Anuj Mehrotra &
Alok Gupta.
But Alok Sir, you cannot compare Sir RJ with Sir JC.
