the birthday post - 32

32!
They say it's all officially over now. 
No more fun and games, only serious adult life. 
But I feel pretty enthused only. Full steam ahead.

I debated putting an end to this yearly ritualistic rambling posts.
Because people say you should be more wary of putting out personal stuff on social media. 
Everybody will read and judge you and all it seems. 
What rubbish. Who has that much time? 
Most stuff on social media is here today, forgotten tomorrow. 
Much like many things in life.

Maybe next year there will be no birthday post.
Will be cool and secretive and mysterious and all. Ha!
It’s funny how we spend a lot of our twenties trying to prove that we’re adults.
At 32, there’s no need to prove anything to anyone. Time to chill.
I’ve spent time in my twenties trying to understand the meaning of life.
But I don’t think about it that much these days.
I’m now armed with some (possibly misguided) confidence that I’ll figure it out.


This year, I’ve learned the art of planning.
If you live away from your home country, the crazy wild impulsive take-a-train-tonight travel doesn’t work.
Got to check all the three-day weekends and holidays beforehand, book tickets in advance, etc.
One must plan stuff. There’s a good chance that it’ll work.

Out of the 500+ comics I’ve created, I just like one.
I hate my work on most days.
I feel like what comes out in words and pictures is just a teeny fraction of the universe in my head.
Music is a far better outlet.
If I could choose to do it all over again, I would choose to be a pianist and perhaps nothing else.

It seems to me like friends don’t talk much in their 30s.
I think the distance grows startlingly with the passage of time.
Everybody is busy working, taking care of themselves, taking care of others, figuring out stuff, hating their jobs (or loving them), getting married, getting unmarried, having babies, writing long rants on their birthdays.
Or maybe everyone but me has learned the art of being cool and mysterious.

I was asked recently what advice I would dole out to school/college kids.
A few years ago I would have said follow your dreams, chase passion, blah blah.
But after much thought, I’ve figured out what it is:
Don’t waste your brain.
It’s a marvellous, marvellous thing.
It also needs to be constantly monitored for optimum resource usage.
I’m learning to be careful about whom I lease out the space in my brain to.

This year, I’ve decided to try to be more objective.
I’ve found myself (in more situations than I like to) admit always choosing to believe some fantasy version of the story in my head rather than what’s actually happening.
Forever deluded.
But I guess we all are, no?

Choosing our own filters and lenses, subconsciously or otherwise.
Maybe it’s better that way.

I struggled with settling down in a new country a few years ago.Friends worldwide seemed to do it with apparent ease -- passport stamp, stamp stamp.
It was only when I spoke with a friend that I realized he was going through the thing.
People should swap stories more.

There should be entire events built solely with the purpose of story swaps.
Real, meaningful stories. Not the “All good”, “Not too bad” kind of rubbish exchanges.
I’ve learned that being an adult means nobody wants to get into details.

We like to say “All good”, irrespective of the truth.
It turns out that it’s not cool to talk about things you think it’s not cool to talk about until you actually talk about it.

I want to put an end to this “makes me happy” language.
Gimme the full range of emotions, gimme it.
I always ask for trouble.

Meaningful conversations seem like rare gems nowadays.
Quick, put them in a box.
Revisit occasionally.
Precious savings for a rainy day.

There’s way too much hate speech in the world.
On some days, I think we’re a bunch of pathetic idiots.
On others I think the world is full of kind and wonderful people doing fantabulous things.There’s so much crap yet there’s so much hope.
My heart aches when I see lovely, kind people in thankless jobs.
We say thank you far too less.

An adult can never really think like a child.
We know too much.
And there are so many problems that come with knowing too much.
But the more you know and discover, the more you realize just how much more you don’t know…
I find it bizarre that we accept that we don’t have answers to fascinating things like space and god and why mobula rays jump but we can drive ourselves crazy about why someone won’t talk to us.

Apparently you can’t really see the sun rise over the waters in Goa because it’s west coast and you can’t see sunrise over the sea in Chennai because it’s east.
I’ve had trouble digesting this newly acquired bit of info. Never thought of it that way.

I’ve learned to be OK with liking another country without feeling like a desh-drohi.
I love cow parsley.
I love studying the shapes of leaves. I’d like to be a nature illustrator.
The thing I love most about the UK is the freedom to walk pretty much anywhere.
It’s impossible not to fall in love with the English countryside, the wide open skies and trails along the coast.
Trees are cool.

Discovering birds has changed my life. I don’t think I can ever be bored again.
I think knowing that birds exist (and I mean really knowing, listening, watching) makes you feel less alone.
One of the highlights of the last year was watching a massive starling murmuration. Tears happened. 
Birds are cool and clever and kind of hilarious at times.
I love watching blackbirds sunbathe in the garden in summer.
I don’t own binoculars and don’t use bird-tracking apps but being a bird-watcher and bird-listener has made me use my eyes and ears like never before.
What powerful faculties we have at our disposal! Lucky us.

Interesting things I heard this year:
“If you ask the right questions, you’ll find the right answers,” a friend, after I said I was going through existential crisis. (I’m still waiting for someone to leak that question paper.)
“Zameen ki khushbu nahin toh baarish ka kya fayda?” a friend, after I mentioned that the rain in the UK didn’t smell like the rain back home.
“Nobody is worthy of such adulation,” a friend, after I said that I was mesmerized by someone who was indifferent to my existence.
“Lower your expectations,” from a friend, after I grumbled that I’d been struggling with the same paragraph for over two hours.
“Sometimes you have to put yourself first,” the wise Amma, who else? ;)

I’m incredibly possessive of my time.
I never thought I’d say this but I’ve grown to love spreadsheets. 
I’ve got better at dealing with crappy days. I tell myself: It’s just one bad day.
Life is more than one bad day.
I’ve got better at making decisions. I tell myself: There’s only one way to find out.

I like how we don’t have to make an effort to get night to fall or the sun to rise.
Many things happen automatically.
A lot of the big stuff is taken care of.
We just have to get better at filling in the blanks.

It’s nice to be in control.
There’s no other option, no?
It feels pretty good.

Hello new year, brace yourself, I’m coming hurtling at top speed.
Cheers!

The blahness of adulthood: Musings of a 30-something

Loans and EMIs and Big Decisions and Big Responsibilities and Planning in Advance. That’s what I thought being an adult involved. And it turns out it’s exactly what I had anticipated.


I feel like an awful lot has changed from my 20s to my 30s. It seems to me that I’ve spent the first three decades of my life having the good fortune to be wild, carefree and impulsive. Had my head in the clouds, but feet on the ground, was a little lost but incredibly driven, hopelessly romantic but reluctantly practical. Somewhere along the way, the scales tilted and I find myself a less wild, less carefree and less impulsive person.


One of the first thing I noticed as an adult was a startlingly conspicuous drop in the number of calls from friends (and the calls I made to them). Suddenly there were Bigger Priorities. To-do lists got longer and longer, not just my own I suspect, those of others too. Social media, if it’s anything to be trusted, confirmed that some friends were alive and kicking. Those who dropped off social media were in touch once a few months or a few years, mostly for major announcements. Nobody talked about anything serious they were going through. Only good news was broadcast.


While I struggled with settling in another country, I was amazed to see friends shining in a nomadic existence — passport stamp, stamp, stamp. It was only when I spoke to a dear friend who shared my new-country loneliness did I realize something. We are so careful about what we share as adults. Our troubles and frustrations are to be battled with as lone warriors, when everything is quiet in the dead of night. We are fiercely proud, with only our pillows as witnesses to our tears.


One of the reasons we hesitate to share and swap stories frequently as adults is perhaps because we never know what’s going on in the other person’s life. We tread carefully. Things are great, I declare. All good here too, the friend says. I hesitatingly say that things have actually been less than great. She is concerned. I go first. She then admits that she’s been through a rough patch too. She goes next. It’s like we need to confirm that we’re in the same boat, and that’s the signal for us to go ahead and share. If one of us didn’t make the first move, it would have been any other grown-up conversation — bullet-pointed life updates and a quick exchange of pleasantries.


In a way, it’s because we are simply more considerate I think. You don’t want to make a new house announcement to someone who just lost their job, you don’t want to talk about your divorce to that happily married friend. I’m always a little nervous before catching up with someone after a long time, like they’re going to tell me about what a horrible year they’ve had, but they’re all better now, and I’d feel like a terrible, helpless and absent friend.


Being an adult means being more private, more independent. Being an adult means we don’t really want to get into details. Everything’s okay, we say. All good. Nobody needs to know the nitty-gritties, we have no time and even less patience. The standard response to ‘What’s up?’ becomes a casual, offhand “Nothing much”, which could mean anything from nothing much to massive life-changing events.


The other thing I’ve noticed is that everything needs to be Planned. Ugh! There’s less scope for taking off as you please. In January, think about where you’re going in summer. In summer, book your tickets for the Christmas break. If you’re not going anywhere at all, think about what life goals you’re going to achieve. Make a list. Plan your retirement. Plan your savings. Plan when you’re going to quit your job and run off to the mountains like everyone else supposedly is. Plan the concert you want to attend. Plan your studies. Plan B. Plan that house you’re going to buy. Plan for the future. Plan for just in case. Plan for yourself. Plan for those dependent on you. Plan the next career move. Plan what’s for dinner. Plan your three-day weekends.


We plan because we want to Be Prepared. We want to be ready for the what-ifs, ready for bad news, ready for change, ready with our resources. Forget about being ready when the sky falls or when the aliens come or when the world ends, we’ve got to plan for the next hour. Some of us try the no-planning plan, which only lasts until you burn out of the weekday-work-weekend-Netflix routine. Then you get up one day with renewed resolve and say, Ah Yes! Today I’m Going To Plan.


Lastly, the most disturbing discovery of my thirties: so much of the romance is dead. Maybe this is also because I moved out of a dramatic tropical country to a stiff-upper-lip, colder country. But yes, I think we become decidedly unromantic as adults. We are far less accepting of the outrageous. We frown upon people who seem flippant and frivolous. We are proper, we mind how we behave, we try to say the right things. We look out of windows saying, oh look, it’s raining, but we don’t let loose and dance in the street with abandon.


The scary part is that it gets astonishingly easy to be an adult and do adult-like things. Mostly because everyone else does. And the easier it gets, the more comfortable we get. The more comfortable we get — -oh we know it already: it’s all gloom and doom from this point onwards.

I hate to admit that in my thirties, I seem to have become a new avatar altogether. I revisit my older crazy self in only bouts of Sunday nostalgia, when I bellow the lyrics to an old song while in the shower. I drop my guard less frequently, I care about what others think. I’m more integrated into society. I’m painfully conscious about what I let show. I sweep all the stuff that matters under the sofa and say “all good” and “nothing much”. I only look at my phone in the mornings, not at 3 am, when I want to have a long meaningful conversation with whoever’s awake.


I reflect on everything I’ve written and it seems like this transition into adulthood is for the better. I’m more in control, more considerate, more cautious, more independent. I plan better, I try to say just enough. I mind my own business, I help when I can, I drink lots of water. I stop thinking the world revolves around me, I stop trying to change the world. I’m wiser, more confident, better prepared.


But in spite of all of this, I feel like I’m less than half the person I used to be.