Another Chapter Turned...

Another birthday goes by....

These days there's hardly the feverish anticipation..It comes at its own sweet time, quite late in March, but early in the year just as you are beginning to get the feel of the new year... and then vanishes before you can soak in the day...

It's like every year you shovel some amount of mud out of a pit...Some years you work harder - abuse your soul and body more - and then during some other years, you try to repair the damage, the wear and tear left behind by merciless living...And when you feel really tired and weary, you can lie down in the pit you dug...Dark thought? Hmmm...somehow the image is comforting...

You learn to conserve your youth, use it wisely. Maybe the years have made me wiser.....

Now I know all that buildup towards the D-day is all that will remain....The rest as they say is a nasty anticlimax...

Over the years, the gifts you get dwindle to a trickle - most people look at you and wonder how you can be childish enough to smile like a kindergarten kid when extended the rare gift...they don't know that the excitement is an often well-wrapped junk in shiny paper...How do I say it's not the junk, its the shiny paper that still appeals...I spend more time unwrapping a gift than in using/appreciating the gift itself...So when an unwrapped one comes my way, the first thought is how thoughtless....is that bitchy? Well, so be it...my pleasure in unwrapping gifts got shortchanged, didn't it? 


For long, I went around on my uppity little horse proclaiming to the world and its dog and anyone who happened to be in the vicinity that Age is a number...I will always proudly reveal my age and age gracefully. Well then, I ask my hypocritical self, why do you not have your date of birth on your facebook or anywhere where the little lines appearing on your forehead are not visible at all? Why do you smile that well-practised mysterious smile when people ask you your age? Vanity ensures the capture of the last bastion of honesty...

This is to announce that from henceforth, the new age attained shall be denoted by a single candle only...And if there are more than I can count of my fingers, they better be artfully arranged...

But this has been a day long cherished....One where the first thought on waking up was not having to hurry to get ready for office...But then again, the time difference ensured that I celebrated for a sum total of 29.5 hours - the birthday that began in India time ended as per my UK watch...And as I adjusted my new watch - my shiny new gift to myself - I also mentally wound back my age, now I also chant, age is what the mind tells you....

My father used to say that, he hates being called old, now I know why...Like father, like daughter...


Perhaps winding back time is also a way of giving myself more time...after all, if I were to make my life an objective type examination with multiple choices, many questions would still be unanswered...But then, that's because many more questions that are never generic enough to be put down in the exam have been successfully covered....


Do I sound like a shrivelled old prune? Heck no...I have some jolly good years left to do some lusty living....But then, when your favourite cricketstars start looking like those snotty wannabes who filled up Standard 6 when you were in high school, then you know, it's time to retire the tiny skirts and pink t-shirts..


Thank God for Indian film heroes, especially the South Indian testerosterone displays...most of the big names have been around the film world, longer than you have been on the face of the earth....So there you have some sense of continuity...


This has to be the most random post I have in my blog....But every year, just about this time, I end up doing some spring-cleaning....disused parts of the thinking brain tends to rust...now can't let that happen, can we? the only part that is allowed to rust and RIP is the one which does simple maths...as years go by, my counting skills have atrophied...its plain atrocious now...Counting change out is a mortal embarrassment for me...I tried blaming it on the advancing years, only to be put to shame by my agile sixty-something dad....


Dad appears again in this post...What's with the thought of age and dad? Perhaps someday I'll figure that out...

How I was treated on my birthday, that hopefully will be the next post....waiting for some photographs to pep that piece up....But I already have a working title..."A TART FOR A TART"...something said very fondly by a dear friend, as he went about creating an apple tart for my birthday, knowing as he does my total disinterest in things sweet....


Till then, I shall peer into the mirror in my room and try to fish out any grey hair I might have sprouted...Twenty two year olds shouldnt have to deal with greying hair -  that's the new age my mind has arbitrarily thrown up...


( illustrations: Marilyn Monroe from Flickr and the Lady in the Mirror by Rubens)