(Written last night)
So my birthday will be over in an hour. The hoopla and hullabaloo has already subsided. Not that I’m much of that type. I often get a lot of flak for not being ‘up to the occasion’ as these people put it. Guess that’s not me. loud celebrations don’t interest me, nor do overt displays of birthday-pride and birthday-importance. Call me shy. Call me reticent, prudish, whatever.
And so its 11pm, and I’m looking back at the day. Raucous dinner with best friends, cake cutting with family, special moments with someone, a new shirt that’ll grow old someday, resolutions that will grow cold someday. That was the day.
I look back at other birthdays. Same scenes. What changes? A birthday is portrayed as a change inducing day. “ooh you’re twenty now. Someone’s growing.” “Good lord was it yesterday that you peed on my pants?” and stuff.
Nothing changes. I mean, sure, stuff changes. Circumstances change, surroundings change, but people never really do. The Bharat who got rapped on the knuckles by the teacher in school when he was eight, is not really different from the one who gets reprimanded by his father now for over using the phone. The Bharat who felt shivers when his name was called for oral examinations in fifth standard, is exactly the same guy who feels a ball of fire run down his insides when he approaches the results notice board. The Bharat who cried on watching Border is the same guy who merely pretends impassivity now. I used to cry in Junior KG when my mom used to go to office. I still feel the same tinge of sadness when she leaves. I desperately used to wait for 5 pm, counting down hours, everyday so that I could go down and play. Now I desperately wait for weekends to play, counting down days. See? Nothing changes.
People fake wisdom, they fake worldliness, they fake sophistication, as they progress. To show other people, or to inflate their egos or maybe something to that effect. Either ways, none of it is necessary.
If you accept that you’re the same, maybe the pangs of growing up and losing things will not bother you that much.
Retain that little kid in you. You’re nothing without that kid.
2 comments:
hmm.......amazing article....
People do not fake wisdom. They choose it over immaturity because with age, they 'know' better. We are literally coerced by life to learn as we grow up... or conversely, to grow up as we learn. We start knowing things better, and unfortunately, once we know we can't not know those lessons we have learnt. As a kid, we can do things in the name of ignorance but that too gets taken away once we are older because we 'know' as we grow. And that 'knowing' is truly not faked.
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