Senescence

I have always found the gulf between theory and practice quite annoying. On paper, I could write ballads on the backhand- from Steffi Graf’s one-handed sliced backhand to Safin’s perfectly controlled two-hander. Yet, when I stood holding a racquet for the very first time on R-Land’s concrete courts, I skied twelve consecutive balls over the 20-foot high fence and onto the adjacent football ground. In another sport, my strokes would have been lauded by all and dubbed homeruns, sixers and whatnot. Tennis, sadly, has never been the most logical of games.

Over the years, many a wide-eyed kid has called me his role model and thanked me no end for inspiring him to achieve whatever little he managed to achieve in his miserable life. Without a hint of sarcasm, mind you. The mantle of the role model fell on my shoulders again that forgettable Friday evening. A small crowd had gathered around to watch the barrage of projectiles that I was sending over the hedge with unerring accuracy. ‘Look! That guy is in 4^th year and he’s still worse than us,’ I heard one of the kids whisper, clutching his racquet with a newfound vigour. I had half a mind to give the bloke a sermon on geriatric wisdom and how tennis wasn’t one of the many fields it encompassed. I decided against it though, lest the R-word be brought up all over again.

You know you are older than you'd like to be when your playlist has more songs of John Denver than Nirvana. I turned twenty one a fortnight ago. It feels like seventy one, to quote the words Darth Canine used on his twenty-first. It is a strange thing to say, but for the first time in life, I feel terribly old. It isn't the mature, coming-of-age old. It's more a nostalgic, 'those were the days' brand of old. More's the pity.

As I languidly empty the contents of my sixth cup of coffee in as many hours, the matkas in the neighbouring canopy are busy planning their campaigns for the impending elections. The PM household is going about doing their thing. A long-haired fresher is humming Linkin Park’s latest, twirling his fingers into a range of convoluted positions while he did so. A couple is recreating a scene straight out of a chicklit novel- giggles exchanged, hands entwined, sweet nothings whispered- the whole nine yards.

Ever the silent spectator, I watch the motley crowd go about their business, constantly reminded of that timeless dialogue from Lethal Weapon- ‘I’m too old for this stuff.’

Monkey see, monkey do

The penultimate in the long list of schools I’ve attended had an hour a week dedicated to ‘personality development’. It was a sham; I doubt if any of our personalities developed a great deal during those sessions spent staring blankly at trees (soul-searching, they told us) in the cruel Madduland sun. Then again, it was a welcome break from the rigmarole of classes, 'slip' tests, assignments and whatnot. Plus the course was taken by this sprightly old man named Mr. Srinivasan who was nice enough to create corny nicknames for all 38 of us. He even carried along a jar of toffees to distribute during classes, so all was well. “Be yourself!” was one of Mr. Srinivasan’s many catchphrases, which was inevitably followed by a “You are unique!” in his trademark Tambi accent, with ‘n’ inevitably replaced by its huskier cousin (as in ‘ta tha da dha NA’).

Over the years, this is a dogma that has been thrown at me time and again by every counselor worth his salt. I, for one, never really bought the idea. I am prone to hero-worship; at times, even mimicry (like most other Cancarians, Wiki tells me). The entire concept of individuality is a myth floated around new-age self-help gurus and modern babajis. Role models, heroes, idols- what are all these but euphemisms for the human mind’s basic tendency to ape those around it? For all the talk of evolution, the sixth sense and all that garbage, a part of us still believes in dropping our hats simply because the hat-seller did so too.

I have had my share of heroes- Dad, Sachin Tendulkar, (Sir?)Ryan Giggs and, of course, Holden Caulfield. Even so, never has my urge to ape been exposed in all its filth and ugliness as it was during my first few months in R-Land. Which brings me, at long last, to today's lunch and why I’ll be telling my grandchildren about it many moons from now. Surdy Pop, Lefty, The Hairy Scouser, Bang-bang and The Decayed Canine sit before me as I devour another round of Dynasty’s heavenly Paneer Kali Mirch. Pulki and his Milan jersey, sadly, are conspicuous by their absence. For a few fleeting seconds, I am a wide-eyed freshman again- awestruck by the men(?) who now sit before me; keen to mimic everything they did- their mannerisms, their repartees; even their profanities seemed classy in an inexplicably adolescent way. The following spring reinstilled some semblance of wisdom in me. I began to see the Canine for the overtly-profane pseudo-haddu he truly was. Lefty and Bang-bang had their falls from grace following their failed attempts at ditching the Jedi and finding themselves a missus. Surdy, I strongly suspect, never forgave me for hitting his girlfriend with a paper plane on that ill-fated Bhawan Day.

Lunches like these will join a trillion others in my ‘Those-were-the-days’chronicles. As I wrestle with my third naan, I can’t help but reflect on the fact that what was once a fairly routine affair will now become a thing of the sepia-tinted past. I could probably snatch a dinner or two with a couple of them. All at once? The optimist in me asks me to focus on the paneer instead.

The halo that once surrounded them has faded away, the fascination is all but gone. And yet, the five (six, including Pulki) still remain special, each in a way of their own. With them gone, R-Land will be bereft of heroes; there’ll be no faces to look for at Nesci on a sultry free-afti, no rooms to crash for a late-night session of South Park. As mushy as it might sound, life just won’t be the same again.

There is no charm in growing old, I tell you.

Growing down?

If there is one thing that maddus (citation: short for madrasis, a hyper-intelligent race hailing from the southern half of India.) love more than food and the Superstar, it is rain. We look forward to the monsoons the way a kid anticipates Christmas, only more eagerly. In cold and frigid R-land though, any form of precipitation is far from welcome, though that only seems to encourage Mother Nature to bless us with all the rain in the world. The icy droplets pierce one's skin like needles, and make the already near-impossible ordeal of attending the 9 o' clock lecture all the more cumbersome.

For me, though, there is a silver lining in the clouds after all. The rains, and the puddles that they bring along, mean that I can exhibit my dexterity in the art of drawing shapes on the pavement with my wet shoe-heels. The other day I even managed to write 'Dela' in the aforementioned manner. As I looked at my work of genius, oddly, it was not pride that I felt. The fact that it had come out brilliantly notwithstanding, for the first time, I felt embarrassed and bewildered by my own puerility.

As I look around, I realize that everyone around me has a sense of direction. Some are trying to put on some flab, while others are trying to lose theirs. Some are trying hard to hold on to the coveted DR-1 (short for department rank), while others are trying to make up for the uncharacteristic 7 that they scored in the autumn semester. Some are growing locks, albeit with plans to go bald the following semester. Others are busy apping away to glory to all and sundry for an internship in the suburbs of Siberia. Some moving closer to their dreams, others entrenching themselves in the long-forgotten art of studying. Summing up, everyone is moving forward. I, on the other hand, seem to be living life in reverse..

When I was eight years old, I was gripped by the age-old existential question- Who am I? People would point to their bodies, their hearts, their heads and I would drive them up the wall by saying, but that’s your body, who are you?
Now, at the age of nineteen, I crave Snickers bars.

As a sixteen year-old, I religiously attended classes. As an undergrad student, I run out of class midway through a lecture, having already procured the all-important 'P' next to my name. Moving up in life? Two years ago, I was the ideal high school student- teacher's pet (well, in all subjects except for biology, at least) and armed with a Kevin Arnold-esque boyish charm. Today, half my professors don't even know my name, and even those who do, know me for all the wrong reasons.

Why am I becoming shallower with every passing minute? Is the Roorkee water to blame?

At times I wonder, are you allotted just a certain amount of maturity? What if I used it all up as an annoying over-smart kid? Do I resign myself to a lifetime of finding joy in X-Men, puddles and Snickers bars?