I turned 26 last month. I still find it hard to believe. I guess most people feel the way I do. I kept wondering if I was really that old. Though I might like to brush aside my receding hairline as one of nature's anomaly, but the kids in my colony tend to certify the anomaly as a reality by addressing me as "Uncle" each time we bump into each other. The feeling is exemplified when I visit public place & observe the "Youth" around me who are forever in pursuit of attention (The latest is the shaving off the head , courtesy Aamir Khan's Ghajini look). There are certain facts of life which you always tend to overlook, I guess thats what fantasy is all about. Like I still believe my self to be not more than 18 years old. But I am a good 8 years older.
So, my sudden ill health has invited interest from possibly every nook and corner of the world. Sympathy, I always feel tends to aggravate than subside the agony. But such is human nature. Anyways, so my cousin decided to pay me a visit. I do not know, But I have this issue with relatives. Since, I started interacting more closely with creatures outside my family circles, I have found my "relatives" belonging to a different planet together. I can literally count on my fingers the cousins with whom I get along fairly well. In nut shell, "this blast from the past" was an uninvited guest. Even as I made faces to my mother, she announced with great galore that my cousin was coming.
When he arrived, I was watching Uma Thurman train in the second part of "Kill Bill". But the training session was interrupted as his cell phone beeped. I guess it was some rock music and he started to shout in the middle of the room. Talk about manners. After he kept the phone down, we exchanged greetings. It was so cold, I could possibly feel the chill surrounding our presence in the room. I realised we hardly had anything to discuss. Let me give a brief description of his. His hair was unruly and he looked straight out from the "Tarzan Family". A jeans and a T-shirt that was apt for an unclean cloth for a "Surf Excel" advertisement. He had an unclean look to him, which prompted me to ask my next question. "Is that how unclean you remain in college as well". He replied, "No bhaiyya, only on Sundays I dont take bath. But today was an exception". I was left speechless. But for one brief moment, I felt "Old".
As he kept fiddling with his mobile phone and with that device kept beeping announcing the receipt of some message or the other. I wondered, who could possibly be messaging him all the time. It struck me then, "Boss, Deepak he could be popular or may be he had a girlfriend. Hey, I was famous, but then I did not have a girlfriend. Oh, yes I did not have a cell phone." I felt so relieved to have solved the mystery of my sudden "Inferiority complex".
He glanced at my medicines. My mother acted worried. He looked at my reports & gave the customary , "hmm" of a doctor. He made the same observations that any physician would make. I listened intently. I then asked him, "So, how are you going back?". With unknown audacity he answers, "Flight bhaiyya". I asked, "Kyon, Why not train?" He retorts back, "Its convenient". I inquire, "But dost isn't it expensive also". He gave me the look that he would probably give to his parents. Thankfully the uneasy silence was broken by my mother.
So, the next morning when he was leaving. I made a gesture of giving him some money. And in seconds he took out Rs. 1,000 from my hand. But it seems that he thought that it was Rs. 500 and he makes a comment , "Kya Bhaiyya, people keep giving me these Rs. 500 notes. I dont know how to manage them". I watch what I donate, so I immediately spat like a snake, " Buddy, that is Rs. 1,000 that I have given you!!!!" And then..........he just walked away........I wondered if I missed the "Thank you" or the diffidence that he should have showed while accepting the gift from me.
You know, each time I see Ranbir Kapoor on the Pepsi ad of Youngistan, I wonder if this generation could be so dumb or so callous sometimes(drunken driving cases, smoking on the rise, a generation equally conscious of both brand and sex than the Indian culture). But when I bump into these samples, I am forced to believe that our "Generationext" has indeed paved way for the "Youngistan".
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