To growing up…..

To growing up…..

10, 12, 13, … 16, 19….

The milestones in growing up are such numbers, though seemingly harmless, leave you in a plethora of changes, some of which are starkly intense. When we reach our much talked about “teens”, you get to hear of, read about and advised on the changes that we are going to encounter.       

But there is no guidebook to skipping out of nineTEEN.

             Suddenly, probably not so sudden for all of us, we are not expected to make careless mistakes. The words you once uttered, which were excused, considering them as teenage malfunctioning of your brain, are now supposed to be literally meant. You can’t have a casual conversation or you are a loose talker and not a “chill guy” anymore. You can’t blame your short tempered upsurge on a mood swing because you are technically not allowed to have one. You ARE supposed to be calm, composed, mature.

   The situational irony of “behave yourself, you’ve grown up now” at once and “do you think you are already too old” now falls off and you ARE assumed to be responsible and careful.

      I believe growing up is more often an internal expedition than not, much more than what meets the eye. The flickering ideas, wandering thoughts, thumping heart, obsessive dreams, gleaming eyes all evaporate, all subservient to the new master, the mind. We are at the helm of a new world.

The one, wherein, we are hurt by people, but we no longer want to hurt them back. The one, wherein, you know that nobody stands by your side for real. Your “har friend zaruri hota hai” gets a “conditions applied” asterisk claiming “only in the happy times” because when both of you are stuck in a rut together, he/she simply doesn’t mind trampling over you, indifferent to consequences you would have to face. These are practical demonstrations of our parents’ words that seemed to be cacophonic lectures. Not anymore.

When we are able to tell ourselves to breathe in rage, we grow up. When we can rise above hatred, envy, inferiority and evil, I grow up. When we can hide our tears, even when in desire to shatter and weep, we grow up. When we no longer believe in innocence and truth in people around us, we grow up. When we can bear with the fact and take it in our stride that the world is not a just courtroom, you grow up.

           

             Sometimes we ARE supposed to be polite to a person, you know, who has talked crap about you and you want to punch him in the face, you can’t, you’ve grown up. We must bear and not complain, fight and not lose, forgive and not avenge.

This new world is an epiphany for most of us, me at least. A world where being straightforward implies you are going to be kicked, where it hurts the most, soon and again and yet again.

Fake is the new trend, diplomacy the new weapon and flattery the only virtue.

I might seem to be a pessimist to most of you, but you don’t really need to boast about the pros of growing up. Isn’t it more important to deal with the cons? Growing up is not as glittery gold as it seems, but it is something I loved being introduced to.

The hurt people give doesn’t ache that much anymore, a setback isn’t that discouraging and I surely am ambitious, calm. Focused and determined like never before.

                                      Cheers to growing up!! :)

Attachments- this really makes sense now. Ticked off almost all  on the list, determined for the rest-

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

When you have parted ways….

When you have parted ways….

“I am counting my days, when’d I leave college”

I heard her say this, took a second to absorb that and then, something changed inside me.

On one hand are the final years who are all perplexed at the idea that they have to part ways soon, distance themselves from people who matter to them and move to the real battlefield called Life; on the other, are we, the others. Frustrated because of petty issues, subtle politics (doesn’t seem so subtle when you are at the receiving end of it though), internal conflicts, waves of rage, envy, inferiority complex or any other ingredient that you can think of which has a potency of making your life distasteful. 

This frustration has often overpowered the surreal fantasies that we carved out in our mind about college and college life. But the bigger question is, what is more important?

Trivial differences and conflicts or the loss that we’d bear by missing out on bonding with equally talented people around us?

2 years down the line, when each one of us would walk out of the gate we walked into in August 2012, look BACK at the MIG that we looked FORWARD to and stared in absolute surprise, bid adieu to the stone engraved with VNIT that we clicked photos with, what do we want to look back to?

A time where we could have made our expectations alive but we didn’t because we were struck with ego or extreme sensitivity or just the thought that he dint ask me why should I? A time where we had so much of unhealthy competition amongst ourselves that we began to think of each other as machines rather than working together to build one? A time when we sat looking forward to an opportunity to degrade the other?

OR, better…                                                                                                                 

A time when a Nescafe with friends in the VNIT rains breathed life into the sessional-end semester race, a time when we fanatically screamed in the auditorium and made IG one of the most unforgettable moments in life, a time when a healthy discussion on prospects after graduation made you feel intelligent?

It’s a choice that we make today.

Make the one you won’t regret when you part ways with people.

Agreed, every instance   doesn’t head the way you want, every person doesn’t react the way you expected, neither can they, nor should they. But we must make a choice. Is the difference more important than the person, his one comment more important than his friendship?

We need to rise above pettiness. Look at the bigger picture. Because, not after a very long time, we’d part ways. Probably never to meet some people in life. EVER. Not even those who you’d feel could have been your best buddies.

What do we do? Call/text/meet him. Sort out, throw up stuff, hit him, give him a hug and stay happy together.

If regret is not one thing you want to walk out of college with, just 2 simple tasks weave the magic- Apologize and Forgive. No difference, no hatred, is bigger than losing a person irrespective of how he is.

To some, this might seem one of the other crappy emotional piece, to some it might create the change it created in me. Irrespective of it. Ending the all too emotional and straight from the heart piece, I’d like to apologize to anybody who has ever, knowingly or unknowingly, felt otherwise about anything relating to me.

I am sorry, because life for me is too short to cultivate differences and too short to love enough.
 "When you find somebody you want to keep around for a long time, you must do something about it".

Love

Palak J