Forms of expression

"Leave an impression"

"Put your best foot forward"

"Imprint the memories"

"Shoecase your love"

All these are not guidelines towards living a life of happiness and virtues. These are often used euphemisms for invitations to a birthday bump party @ IIM Lucknow.

What is a birthday bump party you ask? I envy your ignorance. It is a party where the birthday boy (referred here as the victim) is picked up by a group of people (called perpetrators) and then given some highflying kicks on the a**. Apparently, many gifted students at IIML have discovered their love for football during this "high flying" interaction. And many not so gifted people continue to try and work towards a "kicking" future through these interactions.

Today I was the victim. Despite my best application of strategy (including bribes, divide-and-rule and the most effective, run-like-the-wind) I was not so lucky today. The principle element that undid my strategy was ‘the cake’. Since the SynapsE members had got a cake for me, it would have been rude (though infinitely prudent) to refuse to go. So there I was, with me staring at the cake and eleven Synapsians staring at my a**. It would not have been that bad if only they hadn’t stopped staring. First they picked me up... (The content here has been suppressed because it may seriously shatter the IIM dreams of budding aspirants) ... after which they let me fall to the floor.

You see, being a day scholar most my life, my a** is accustomed to a totally different kind of treatment. It has so far contacted more-or-less cushioned surfaces or even gentler elements of nature like air and water. This inadvertent meeting with leather shoe surfaces at high velocity has totally caught it off-guard. As it withers under the pain of friendship, the pain turns to a new found vengeance. I can already see how innocent victims like me are pulled into this racket of becoming perpetrators. I was an innocent bystander to all the birthday proceedings in the past. But not anymore. The following year shall see me kick my way to bumping glory. Lord save thy a**es !

Now I will stop writing. It is time again for a walk around the room.

The perfect love affair

I've often wondered what the perfect love story would be. What kind of a demi God would the hero be and how many ships would the heroine be able to set sailing for her. How would the cosmos conspire to make them meet and what would their destinies hold after this fateful meeting. Would they turn into a doting couple who live together and die together, or would they never meet and go down in history as a beautiful thing that couldn't be.

The few things that really come close to the perfect love story are fairy tales. The waiting for the right person to come into your life, knowing at a glance that your true love has arrived, and heroes and heroines who are as good as they look. And then they live happily ever after.
Real life however, tragically happens to be longer than a 10 page story book. And sadly most of it is spent in the "happily ever after". Soon the "happily" goes away. With time the "ever" seems longer than ever before. And all that is left is "after", a period not well documented in most books that authoritatively describe the events that led them there.
The perfect love story would, I guess, not really be a story, at least not in the kind of meaning the word is generally used. It would be a tidbit of life, another day, a lone journey. The perfect affair is what occurs between you and the pretty young girl on the platform as your train draws out of the station. It is perfect because it is impractical and practicality ruins it.In those few moments she can be everything you want and you don't even have to know what exactly you want her to be. And as she disappears into the milling crowd, you can think of the infinite possibilities for a love that could be. One that wasn't long enough to be tarnished by practicalities of making it real, of making it work. That is the closest we get to a perfect love affair. Most of the times, the hero would give in to the way things are, almost always out of control. But sometimes he may be brave enough to get down from the train.. he may be brave enough to chase the dream.. to call out to her in the busy crowd.. to run up to her.. grab her hand.. and make her turn...
But practicality ruins it.

(Disclaimer: Views expressed are solely of the author. Feel free to jump off moving trains or whatever it takes to chase your dream, at your own risk)

Youth

When you live for feeling the wind in your face,
When questions are more and answers are few,
When recklessness is not a decision but a way of life,
When friends are closer than family,
When late nights and indiscipline make you popular,
When responsibility is only about household chores,
When decisions are taken in milliseconds,
When a car and a girl is all you could dream of,
When you are happy to change yourself for people around,
When all unknown paths need to be travelled,
When having fun is the only objective,
When being unreasonable is quite reasonable,
When the only fear is being ordinary,
When music is loud,
When speeds are high,
When love is perfect,
When world is big,
And you are the best.

All that is youth. I know I will suddenly not cease to be youthful starting tomorrow. But I feel the right of being “young” that I’ve taken for granted since the time I can remember would be forsaken. A new phase of life beckons…

The concept of growing old…

I am scared of tomorrow. Tomorrow I turn 25. In case that didn’t register, that is Twenty-Five. By any measure of time, twenty five years is substantial. I mean it is more than a percent of time since Christ arrived and we started counting straight. What I also mean is that the ‘boyhood’ I have cherished for so long, would have to be foregone. The temporal island free of responsibilities, of not caring, of living in the moment, of pure indulgence would have to be left behind. A large number of unanswered questioned would need to be accepted as unanswerable. The dreams of limitless possibilities would need to be crystallized into a bracket of feasible options. No, I would not stop dreaming. Just the dreaminess behind the dreams would decrease.

The problem with birthdays is that they will come once every year whether you like it or not. Whether you are ready or not, come March 10th and you’d have grown up by a year. It is like each year you are running against time to grow as much as your body surely will. And what does it really mean to grow by one year? How do I judge whether I’ve over-performed, under-performed or just justified one year of temporal growth. Have my perspectives broadened enough for a year? Have I gained a yearful of responsibility, maturity and rationality? Have I made these years count in my overall existence? The concept of age doesn’t answer these questions.

I think a time dependent age is not the best idea. It is good for medical science but that is mostly it. It is the experiences that should add to your age because those are the ones that really add to your maturity. In such a world up till some age, say ten years the age would be the same as your biological age. From then on age would be purely based on your experiences. Getting into a real relationship would add a year to your age. Breaking off from one would add two. A selfless good deed would add a month. A first success would add half a year and a success after failures would add a whole year. Fighting a handicap would earn you years and standing by a closed one in his illness would also add years.

Imagine how useful the concept of age would be in this new world. A world in which age does signify maturity and being young is all about energy and passion. It would be much more meaningful in this world to let people above eighteen drive and people over twenty-one get married. The age becomes your guide, your motivator and measure of a way of life. Where the age of your death really tells you how you’ve lived.

And it would be fun as well. More so because this would require some people would actually get younger with time. I mean Britney Spears would certainly get a year knocked off her age the day she shaved her head. Careless drivers would become young enough to get their licenses revoked. And Bryan Adams for all his youthful exuberance and his undying belief in true love would finally remain eighteen till he dies. It also leaves you with a tantalizing fantasy- if we all forgot our ages would we still grow old?

So this is my idea. A ‘meritocratic’ concept of aging. It would not be practical I agree. Such an age would not be easy to discern and I know it is never going to be feasible. But it is one thing that would keep me from turning twenty-five. Till then I will try and find solace in the aphorism "You are as old as you think you are".