Birthday Blue

For the first few years of your life, you are not bothered about your age. From your teens and till you step outside the college and the university, you are proud of it (probably must be the result of the stubble that starts appearing on your chin). From around 22 to 27, you don't think about it much — everything around is young, everything's possible — Carpe diem and all that. You've probably just started working and are too busy being a pain in the neck (and elsewhere) for the old fuddy-duddies with your excitement and your enthusiasm (Yeah, still carpe diem).

Post that as the big 30 nears (and you reach 30), age-anxiety sets in and you become increasingly squeamish about your age. You are already at the age (and look the age) where kids around start calling you "uncle." Your reflexes are a bit slow (some helpfully point out to me that my slow reflexes are also a function of my size). You are surprised by how many of your beliefs and habits have solidified and resist change. You have become more intolerant than you ever thought you would be. You often realize that you are probably not as close to what you had expected to achieve by this time. You seem to be getting there, not at a sprint but at a steady jog. Opportunities, and not just career-wise, around seem to be shrinking. Life is cool, but not as much as you thought it would be. Your sense of mortality is growing. You have probably made a few concessions, given up some of your romantic and idealistic notions and are doing a compromised version of "what I really wanted to do."

I have reached that age today "officially." Some of all that I have said earlier has happened or is happening with me. Some I can see lurking around the corner. Some, I have heard others speak about and hope never to encounter.

Life has been fairly long. Sometimes, when I have had deadline after deadline staring at me everyday, I have felt it has already been too long. But it has been reasonably exciting and interesting. A great many sad things have happened over the years, and since my last birthday. But a great many happy and good things have also happened over the years and in the past one year.

It’s not been the most eventful year of my life, but I managed to muddle my way and get a few things done. Some just happened. In no particular order:

1. Made a few new good friends, the kind you don't mind meeting everyday.
2. Managed to keep up with most of my old friends too.
3. Saw a few close ones start new lives. Some tied the knot, some went abroad, a few moved to other cities within India.
4. Started blogging and barring the occasional hiccups, have continued to blog. I didn't expect this "craze" to last for so long.
5. Was pleasantly surprised that there are some people (admittedly very few), apart from myself, who read my blog. Found the blog had been mentioned on the Beeb, not for anything great, but it was nice.
6. Surfed a lot (the Internet, not the sea).
7. Managed to read at least three books a month, often more (considering that most of my reading happens while traveling to and from work in Mumbai's crowded local trains, not bad). Some of them have been really good.
8. Started sampling some non-fiction (I was, and I am still, largely an ONLY fiction person).
9. Visited Mahabaleshwar, finally.
10. Visited Siddhivinayak for the first time (And there was a time when I was working for a year in Dadar, about a stone's throw away from the temple). Not that I am particularly religious, but mom and dad, for a few days, felt that I had finally joined the side of the Good.
11. Managed to send Mom and Dad on not one, but two vacations that they wanted to go (should actually call them pilgrimages).
12. Managed to steer clear of numerous pesky relatives, especially the kind that wanted to see me "happily settled."
13. Worked on some interesting projects, the kind that make the long hours seem worth it.
14. Worked also on a few boring projects, the kind that make you want to stay in bed and call in sick.
15. Learnt that perceptions and labels matter. Haven't figured a way around it yet though.
16. Learnt that I can be comfortable with most people and can easily avoid those with who I am not.

But there were quite a few things that didn't happen. This can be my "to-do list" for the coming year. Again in no particular order (except the first one):

1. Get absolutely, totally drunk (now you know where my priorities lie).
2. Meet more people. Make a few new friends.
3. Meet my old friends often.
4. Blog more. More original posts.
5. Start writing my thesis. Or make an honest attempt at it.
6. Visit my teachers and college more often.
7. Read more and have a variety in what I read.
8. Take a good look at my life and my career. Decide where I want to head to and how I am going to get there.
9. Learn to strike a work/life balance. Basically, get a life.
10. Learn to avoid getting into a soup at work.
11. Learn something new.
12. Take a long vacation (counted in months, not weeks)
13. Earn more (doesn't seem to fit with the earlier item on the list — Well, work something out).
14. Look for a home closer to the office (is tied directly with the preceding item on the list).
15. Visit a few places that I have never been to before.
16. Learn to drive.
17. Go for those long walks that I used to enjoy so much.
18. Go trekking, hiking.
19. Go on Ashtavinayak Darshan. That should fetch me enough brownie points with my parents to last for a year.
20. Spend more time with my parents and attempt to understand them.
21. Continue to steer clear of pesky relatives.
22. Get "people skills."
23. Exercise (oh, yeah?).
24. Stop feeling blue and enjoy life more.
25. Stop making such lists.
26. Start working towards doing all that I want to do.

Many apologies for this rather self-indulgent, rambling post cum grocery list. But I thought I could get away with this today.

And if you are wondering about the title, nope I am not blue about getting older. . . It's just about my new blog template.

Corny, no?