Thursday, July 05, 2007

growing up again



Growing up meant outgrowing polka-dotted, fancy 'durga puja' shirts for less gaudier, plain ones... it meant wondering how actors changed costumes in the blink of an eye during song sequences


growing up meant learning about the worlds of Right and Wrong, Dos and Donts, and then witnessing their boundaries dissolve.. it meant watching the black and white blend into solemn grays... it meant learning that the 'ever after' in the 'lived-happily-ever-after' ending stories was actually a Short, Finite period of Time


growing up meant asking questions to which there were no answers: in a fight between a hippo and a shark who will win? do you love daddy more or me?


growing up meant watching adults make funny faces and laughing at their foolishness... or breathing life into battery-powered toys, favourite pencilboxes, and fragrant erasers such that losing them sapped you of reasons to be happy


growing up meant letting school teachers build edifices in your memory that lasted more than a lifetime... it meant piling up birthday candles until there were too many


growing up meant not letting a drop of pee out until mother said 'ssssssss'... it meant learning to tie shoelaces by yourself... or lisping 'baba black sheep' before proud, indulgent Mamuni


growing up meant saying 'god promise' to be privy to deep, dark and mysterious littlechildren secrets... it meant swearing to be 'best friends for ever'


growing up meant dreading when you had to look mother in her eyes and lie and realizing that it was futile... it meant listening to grandma's fantastical stories with rapt attention and then believing in them... it meant being petrified by the palpable dread in ghost tales


growing up meant having an idea of 'adult' questons and wondering who to get their answers from... it meant watching a world of infinite possibilties shrink when you fathomed those answers


having grown up means biting nostalgic pies from memory and almost smiling out loud at the lucidity of bygone years... it also means losing an artlessness and not mourning the Loss...
it means spinning a life gone by on memory's wheel and lending an acceptable shape to its corpus... it means letting wondrous eyes turn into hard marbles and living with the consolation that it was worth it... it means measuring words before others... it means adulterating friendship and gathering and dusting off soulmates... it means fighting against everything and everyone to protect that little something that is still unscathed


P.S.: I had published this post (except the last part) about a year ago

18 comments:

CandidConfessions said...

That is a nice telling! Growing up also means the coming of age and the the joyous rendering of the bygone years! :)

Unknown said...

Good one...touching

Psyche said...

u got me all teary eyed... !!!

Goli said...

That was the lovely post. I just loved reading it... by the ways is that your photo?

satyajit said...

candid confessions: i can sense the mood you're in! thank you

anirudh: thank you :-)

psyche: i didnt intend to..just a smile would do

goli: thank you..no, thats not me..i had got that pic from flickr..i dont remember what got me writing this post..that pic or something else

nutty said...

I couldn't help but smile as I read your post.. till I came to the end. I know you're right, yet I don;t want to be so hard on adults (I don't include myself as most people who know me consider me to be quite juvenile.. phew! thank god for that!)

all the same .. maybe this will help..

growing up meant dreaming of the infinite possibilities ..
being grown up means having the ability to make those possibilities real...

nutty said...

PS: I don't quite know how to connect with what you write ... yet at some level I do ... hence your posts always make an interesting read! Therefore - I blog-rolled you :)

satyajit said...

nutty: thank you especially..yr comment couldn't have come at a more opportune time..i was harrowed at work and couldn't help wondering about how far i was from my world..somehow, what you wrote helped me reconcile myself to my lot..thank you again

CandidConfessions said...

You'r welcome satyajit! Like nutty pointed I could not quite follow too! But this post was quite unlike your previous posts! Keep them rolling!

nutty said...

:)
you're welcome!

I know I should quit while I'm ahead but I guess this is where the juvenile streak kicks in -

From your earlier posts and the comments, I know you have done more in the past months than most people our generation do in their lifetime. You're living every moment doing everything possible (carpe diem n all that) .. yet your posts reflect a certain restlessness..

My only wish for you is I hope you find what you're looking for and find that all-elusive happiness :)

Still Searching said...

Almost every line in the post rings true and I can relate to it completely! Just yesterday I was telling my younger brother "When you come to my age, things aren't black and white anymore.. they become many different shades of grey" and he seemed so perplexed!

I like the words you've chosen to describe growing up..

satyajit said...

ruchika: thank you much...

i thought u were a cool sis... now i think maybe yr younger brother is really small or u've become really old

ok dont get mad at me :-)

Still Searching said...

Hehehe.. yeah, I may have acquired a different type of grey, if you know what I mean! ;)

P.S: My bro IS 7 yrs younger to me.. I'm thinking - he belongs to a diffferent generation! :)

Anonymous said...

yea, nice post.

satyajit said...

ergo: thank you quite

Pritesh Jain said...

While reading through the post I was wondering that I had heard all this somewhere. Tried to recall while going through the post. And then I read the last lines.

As usual its the typical baba I know. Read you after a long time. Keep it coming. :)

satyajit said...

prits: we've been together for more than a year, you see!

Anonymous said...

mmmm :)