I couldn't agree more with the saying about the grass being greener on the other side than I do now.

When I was little all I wanted to do was become an adult. Now that I'm actually being given the "privilege" of being one, all I want to do is frantically turn back time somehow.

Being a kid is so much more easier. Not that I'm having a burdensome life as an adult. Life is going just right. But then I look at all my little cousins and nieces and nephews who are not-so-little-anymore and wonder how the heck everyone grew up so quickly. I guess I've just been cribbing for so long about being a child and not being taken seriously, that I haven't noticed that I've been given the chance to shut up now. Paradoxically I now want to indulge in baby-talk, be pampered, pinch people on restless impulse, act like a kindergarten kid....

The first shock came with a phone call to my cousin brother whom I haven't spoken to for around five years. No specific reason behind the silence, we'd just gotten out of touch. So when he called from Mumbai and asked for me, I expected a bratty little voice to say "Mish chechi, what you doing?" ("Mish" because he could somehow never say Nish). What I did hear, however, was this deep mature voice enquiring how Nish chechi was doing. And that too in the most well-behaved, polite voice I've ever heard in my entire life. I was so stunned. Absolutely stunned. My mum reminded me that he was a seventeeen year old young man now. Gosh. How very different from the little devil who repeatedly chased my brother and me around the house in red underwear, despite the fact that we were both older than him.

Shock number two came when the nephews from Orlando arrived. Gone are the energetic bright kids. Now they're tall strapping teenagers who have built their respective fortresses of awkwardness around themselves. The younger one's hairstyle is rather cute now, though. Black curly snake-like strands, about two inches long and giving him a cherubic appearance. I can just about picture girls his age "crushing" over him. Consequent surprises included discovering that my niece had grown taller and more quiet and that my baby nephew had started talking (wasn't he born very recently?)

Other than all this my cousin sister who used to latch herself onto me (literally!) has become extremely withdrawn. When I gently probe to know "whats up", she doesn't say anything except "nothing much" or "you won't understand". It wasn't too long ago that I'd said similar things to my mother. When I told mum she just sighed and said "it's the age". It IS the age indeed....

I feel old.

I'm contemplating saving up considerable amount of moolah. For my dentures, hearing aids...walking sticks....spectacles...the save-me-a-place-in-heaven-Lord pilgrimages...

And while I plan my exit formalities from good ol' Earth, you can fund the journey upto the exit stage.

Be generous.

PS- Please donate through cash or cheque only

The "M" word...

“Marriages marriages everywhere
May no man ever be spared!”

These days all I hear people talking about are weddings, marriages, engagements and honeymoons. And that would be quite an understatement. I mean it’s just everywhere like some kind of plague that’s spreading with an alarming speed all over the world. No disrespect meant to the institution of marriage, but it’s just bewildering, baffling and sometimes even frightening.

My darling mum has also recently discovered that her little girl will be all of 22 years this July. There’s some ominous fascination that our family has with that age. All of sudden aunts, cousins, grandmothers, uncles and practically every other conceivable relative are nodding vehemently when mom voices her concerns about starting to “look for a boy” for me.

It’s hilarious, in part, because the above mentioned people haven’t even begun to treat me like an adult. Not to say that I’m behaving like one and not getting due credit for it. I rather like being a brat, getting loads of attention and having a pampered life (yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it anymore). Sure, there are odd moments in some days when I very much feel like a woman – like an adult who has finally begun to know her mind that’s now surprisingly clear of most kinds of childish anguish. I also feel like I’ve found the strength to chase my dreams whether or not I’ve got people backing me up.

But a wedding this soon? I really am not too sure…

I attended the reception of a classmate from college, last weekend. She looked very pretty. One could see the amount of work that had gone into looking pretty for the wedding too. But she stood there smiling a genuinely happy smile all the while, looking very poised to start a new life with the man who stood beside her, accepting good wishes and presents from the crowd. This young lady was the same girl who exhibited the requisite rowdy component in order to a student of “3 bcom b”. How time changes people and their perceptions.

All the mild phobia about marriages apart, I do sort of understand why proud bachelors and bachelorettes (as the mirror in Shrek calls them) finally give in to ‘holy matrimony’ as it were. Sure it’s very empowering and liberating to live a single life in complete independence, provide for yourself, be ‘forward-thinking’ and whatever other perks that kind of life could possibly offer. But I imagine that after a while (and the duration of that time frame varies from person to person), one does begin to find a life alone rather lonely. One might have friends or a hundred one-night stands or both but at the end of the day, when one is going through a really rough patch or one of those pensive phases, one does wish there was someone to come home to. Someone who’d provide that much needed other human presence to make the residence a home. That person needn’t be Don Juan Demarco but if he would just be genuinely happy to have you back home, wouldn’t that be a much more appealing option as compared to returning to a dark house and tripping over clothes on your way in because you forgot to put them to wash in the first place?

I once read an article that said that men like to be married for three reasons. I’m not entirely sure if I remember them accurately but I recall them as being conversation, companionship and stability. Those who have been lonely would probably agree with me when I say that it is most likely a comforting thought to know you have a warm body to sleep next to in the darkest of nights (and no I don’t mean sex).

Companionship and conversation definitely strike me as very good reasons to want to get married. Maybe they are the very foundations that keep marriages going. I mean if you can’t stand your husband’s/ wife’s presence and/ or you think talking to him/her is like wasting the romanticism over a dodo, there aren’t too many chances you’ll be doing the ‘funky chicken dance on your golden anniversary’, are there? And considering that every couple is going to get their share of irritating in-laws, painful acquaintances, fussy problematic babies, schooling and education related woes, anxieties in planning retirement etc one might as well make sure that the person one wants to share all this with is worth all the trouble.

Maybe marriages aren’t so bad after all. But the next time I hear someone flinging a not-so-casual suggestion at me to get married to ‘a nice boy’, I swear I’ll scream.