Sunday, July 20, 2008

"Growing up"..The journey from Complan to Complain!



God gave me a crooked set of 28th teeth (Yup..no wisdom teeth as yet. So, in principle no Akkal Daarh = no Akkal..which accounts for 50% of my underdeveloped grey cells!!)

Now, unlike Einstein’s brain, the world for sure wouldn’t have kept my teeth in a museum or framed and displayed over my tomb. So, I always put my dental assets to, if not the best, maximum use (read: overuse) by laughing (hmm..make it laughing. laughing and more laughing). And I always felt glad about it, until last week when one of my colleague psycho-analysed my laughter and asked me to Shut Up!!

I distinctly remember the usual me, cracking up a broodingly morose PJ, giving way to my supersonic laughter waves across the lab corridor (BTW, the berehem duniya waale brand my comic talent as “Poor Jokes”, I claim they are “Powerful Jokes”!!)
Now obviously, not everybody in the crowd was impressed. My sense of humor did prove to be a little distasteful for the dead-pan faced gambhir janta, out of which of one of the suave lady deserves special mention. She gave me this I-will-throw-you-out-of-the-window-right-away look, as though I was some homicidal maniac on a killing spree! I thank my stars that she didn’t, but she did manage to throw a big “Stop laughing! Grow up!” at me.

The reckless, effervescent “child” in me wanted to probe further, and ask for some useful tips on “how to grow up” from her. .”Should I water my roots more often? Which brand of fertilizer should I chew? Will sniffing Money Plant help? I have one growing wild in my room!!” were some of the obvious questions. Never mind..riling her any further would have assured a smooth flight out of the window (which for sure wouldn’t have been too picturesque ). But, the “Mental Me” didn’t improve the situation. 10..9..8..7..and here we go!I burst out laughing again!! Screwedddddddd!!making her even more terribly sick in the stomach.

Half an hour later and it still drew me bonkers recalling if there were some clauses in my PhD contract, as the ones stated below:
1.Do not laugh within the radius of 10 km around the institute.
2.If you do, your laughter should not exceed a decibel “X”.
3.If you fail to abide by rules 1 and 2 stated above, kindly laugh ONLY after camouflaging your kalmooha laughing face under a “monkey cap” (which reminds me I don’t have one and should better get it soon)

Arre yaar..Chill Maadi!! Firstly, laughing and growing up are two orthogonal elements. Secondly, what’s this rush of “growing up” all about? Kitthe jaana hai?

“Growing Up” isn’t a bad idea. The idea eludes one and all, just that the phrase is a little bit overrated and a lot more obscure. I mean, how do you set a time bracket as to when one has grown up? Do you walk, talk, eat, sleep, look or for that matter laugh differently when u finally do? There are zillions of perplexing questions floating around. Any answers?

I am myself standing at a threshold where I resonate between a timorous child and a mature adult.

My hormones have stopped rebelling and the physical changes in me aren’t that confusing anymore (getting a namurad pimple right in the middle of my nose, especially when I’m praying for none, being an exception though). I can buy trousers of just the right length and the exact size of shoes, without getting in to the “Chota ho jayega” perennial argument with Ma. I’m old enough to cast my vote, get a driver’s license, pay electricity bills, claim income tax, aim for “big” things in life like a doctorate, attend superficial social gatherings and no-nonsense conferences and the next “grown up” thing in the pipeline might be slipping a wedding ring down my fingers.

Regardless of the abovementioned, I’m still a paradoxical mix of a child and a grown-up. Everyday when I get up, I unleash the kid in me who makes noise while munching chips, licks ice-cream, pastes bright-sparkly stickers on the refrigerator door, blows bubble out of soap water while washing clothes, sneaks and plays hopscotch on the diced institute corridors, spills aloo-matar on a brand new white shirt (waise all u sundar n sushil betis and bahus, any tips on how I can get rid of the stain?), makes life difficult for Parisa (Parisa...who???for the gazillionth time, “my roomie and colleague”..dobaara mat poochna!!!)…tickles her while she’s reading, squeezes orange peels in her eyes, shoots paper planes at her..in short "poor Parisa" (aka Pappu).

In theory I’m grown up and conventionally it might not be the most apt behavior expected out of a woman, but would it give the Pope sleepless nights if I do so? (Now all you die hard Pope fans, DO NOT take immediate offence and pounce on me any time soon, grin-and-bear it and let-me-be-me. Thank you)

I really appreciate people at 30 behaving as 30 (The 30 year olds don’t sue me either, for the sake of clarification; it was a random number… happy?) Trust me it’s awesome. But don’t we have enough people already doing that? I’m sure Mother Earth is big enough to contain a single anomalous me, even if I am a gross deviation from the prefabricated so called “mature behavior of the homo sapiens

I’m the eldest one and was (yup.."was") THE most calm, quiet, obedient and serious kid around, so much so, that had I been born 20 years before I could have easily mistaken for Meena Kumari’s daughter. I wish I had ever bunked a class, walked out of a line, poked someone’s eye out, and bullied a six-footer (I seriously doubt this one though). But I didn’t do any of the punch-kick-howl-bang-boom stuff then. (Not that Im acting like a kid now,to take vengeance)

So, bhaiyo and bhehno, lying within the above two and a half page long volley of crap is a teeny-weeny message-“life passes by”. So very fast, that the moment you acknowledge your present it already becomes your past. I don’t want to contemplate the meaning of my life by peeping in to my past and thinking about the things I wished to do but didn’t do.Not anymore.Not once again.

I love being an adult, having my choices in life and the freedom to reserve my stake on things I believe are right. We all will grow up. We all will wrinkle..grey..stoop and die. (Hanuman ji ne Sanjeevani booti toh nahi khilayi hai na!!). But I don’t want to relive my youth and act half my age when it is physically less conducive and socially least graceful. I want to live life to the hilt now and until I die, nothing more..nothing less.

So all I wish, to tell the “grown up” lady who refuses to laugh is , the maturity to laugh at myself..my problems…instead of cribbing about it and surfacing my hurt on to others is bliss and that’s what I believe the real “Growing up” is all about.

Ahem..one last question..Don't mind..haan..will Complan really help me or should I switch over to Bournvita?

8 comments:

Anand said...

Powerful jokes. sounds familiar.
Well, bournvita and complan are all crap. if u wanna eat things raw, use horlicks and if u wanna drink something healthy, use Protinex.
Nice and definitely funny article. Kuchh serious suggestions hain, mail mein likh doonga. Just a coincidence that I am also wroking on a funny anecdote, on my blog's latest posting.
(Its yet to be posted)

Arpita said...

Danke!
I bet it does:)
Hmm..as a kid,(and must confess till now), the tastiest thing to smack on was "Everyday" milk powder..so much so that Ma used to hide its bottle under the heap of rice in dabbas.And Protein X...a complete ughhh..tastes like one of the deadliest concoction for commiting suicide!!
Okie dokie..keep me posted on the serious suggestions(on the non-serious stuff)
Ahaan..go ahead and post it asap..let me have my funny bones tickled too!!

Anand said...

i posted one.

Elamparithi Jayamani said...

good one

Arpita said...

@Anand
Yup!And I posted my "much-awaited-valuable-comments" too!hahahaha

Arpita said...

@Elamparithi
Hey Thanks!

Anonymous said...

woww.. that was one long article.. lol.. I totally agree with u.. there is absolutely no hurry to grow up.. I always used to wonder if something is wrong with me.. acting kiddish always earned me those 'stares' and 'glares'.. hehe

Finally, someone to voice out my kiddishness..lol

Btw, I found your blog when I was googling for Complan.. haha.. and I totally recommend Complan.. I looooove Complan..

way to go..

P.S:: or may be u should try giving that gambhir lady a spoonful of farex everyday instead..
oh yeah.. that was a PJ..lol

Arpita said...

@Spoorthy
Yup..the initial posts were epics!!
You are new to the blogworld and there's so much to pen down:)

BTW the lady had to finally give in to my idiosyncracies..and now she is an active audience of the PJ cracking clan!Poor woman, she was left with least choice..hahahaha

Tx for dropping in your comments..would be great to have you around!