Long life in short years

 

In my short 20 years, I have had a long life -- long enough to fill my being with loads of happiness and doses of failures and shocks. Young, though, I am supposed to be, I got into the habit of thinking deep on any subject -- thus inviting my friends to give me the epithet of a “minded fellow”. In other words, they hate my getting engrossed in deep thought every now and then. But then, that is how I am ... ... 20 years ‘old’. No matter the epithet, I like to get lost into my own deep thought .. and imagine ideas that sometimes even shock me .. and think of projects that can entice a hard-headed politician who wants to attract young people to his voting machine .. and dream of writing fine poetry that would make many drop their jaws with its excellent diction .. and ... !

 

That’s all because of am ‘old’ -- all of 20 years. Of course, I must confess, I don’t like people pasting all sorts of blames on young people. That fellow, Oscar Wilde, wrote one of his famed one-liners that “Youth is wasted on the young”. I hate such prudishness. But then, my mates in the class call me too an ‘old’ man. They also call their fathers ‘old men’. The same category -- giving ‘gyaan’ to everybody. But no, no, no ! I don’t go around distrubuiting ‘gyaan’ to everybody. But when I happen to come across gals in the class, I feel terribly tempted to start giving out my ‘gyaan’. Somehow, they appear to like my blah-blah-blah ... ! And I love that. In those charmed interactions with that bunch, I love my ‘old’ epithet, though. For, that is my insurance to be safe in a good company.

 

Let along such jokes, fellas, I am a darned serious guy who loves books and loves classical music and dance and can spend hours listening and watching those graceful renditions of great arts. But this also makes my mates to call me ‘old’. No, I don’t like that stupid thing called pop music. But then, one day, when I was still a little urchin of nine, I heard my heroine of music -- the great Asha Bhosale -- singing pop ... ... and I was floored. That pop I loved. But other pop numbers -- I just pop those into the dust bin. Therefore, I am ‘old’. And by now, after having been old for years, I have started loving the epithet ‘old’. For, I am different. I am myself. I am me -- and others are ‘they’.