21

“ Except ye become as little children, except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, ye cannot enter the kingdom of God. One must not only die daily, but every day we must be born again. “
-- Sayers, Dorothy L.


Unlike many other Homo sapiens, I don’t fret when confronted with the number called age. I treat it the way it should be, like a plain number. A silly fact that’s used in filling forms and helps doctors to judge the metabolic stage of Homo sapiens. Once one forces one’s hesitant psyche to go beyond the numerical nitty-gritty, all’s left to one’s prerogative. In short, one’s as old as one believes to be.
A lot of Homo sapiens, which pretty much includes everyone who knows me, think that I am childish. Well, I admit to have always been in awe of children. The infectious enthusiasm, the relentless curiosity, the ability to switch from sorrow to joy in an instant, the ability to be happy rather than just wanting to be, the gift of sleeping without a worry in the world. There are a lot of weaknesses as well. Agreed. But then, why look for qualities one does not want to imbibe? So much for positive thinking.
But then, yes, it’s time I grew up.

Anyway, there’s a list of things that I desire to possess but have not acquired yet. It omits a lot of things I now consider frivolous but wanted some time back. I present it to assist those who intend to give me gifts on my 22nd birthday. Also, I’m not being a whiner. I know it’s better to count one’s blessings than otherwise but desire is what keeps us alive.
No matter what the circumstances be, whether it’s befitting or not, I’ll get the following for myself someday (said with the grit, confidence and awe-inspiring tone of Cinderella man or whatever).

The tip of an iceberg (no preference order):
-> a pair of good formal-shoes
-> an ipod
-> Playstation (3)
-> a violin
-> a PC/laptop with the best configuration
-> a watch
-> a cricket bat with two sets of wickets
-> a football
-> a tennis racket
-> two badminton racquets
-> a car with all state-of-the-art techno-gadgets
-> Happyness
-> my own cricket ground/ stadium/ whatever’s more viable
-> tuna spread
-> a cruise tour with Brittany Murphy

What I can no longer become (but wanted to, in chronological order):
-> Mathematician (first love: maths)
-> Magician
-> Cricketer (fast bowler)
-> Classical singer
-> Theater actor
-> NBA player
-> Tall...on second thoughts, lets make that taller (still some scope, the eternal optimist that I am)

P.S. I never wanted to become a super-hero, as most of young tween want to.

Peeeee Pee-pip

This one, like all other events, starts with the Big-Bang, or whichever way the Universe was created. (Why do people care anyway?) However, setting aside all the details I deem unnecessary, allow me to come straight to the point. Also, let me try and keep it short this time (no pun, no intention, not funny).
Homo sapiens of my college are required to waste 50 priceless summer vacation days to undergo summer training. Sahee, Lullee (not a sheep, not even a female Homo sapiens) and I (a resounding applause, accompanied by generous doses of catcalling and appreciative whistling by the front-row audience) got selected by SRF. After much contestation, Lullee was selected to be butchered in Bhiwadi. Sahee and I were placed in Gurgaon. So, it started on 14th of May, when I heard that sound for the first time.
On the first day, all we expected us to be forced to do was to get acquainted with the L’ affaires of the office and that is what we almost ended up doing. We got introduced to the technical staff, which has more than half a dozen alumni Homo sapiens from my college, and to some from the administration. Here’s my first impression; hard working Homo sapiens, nice and accommodating; HR Homo sapiens appear to have abnormally fast internal metabolisms; lunch’s good; though usually impassive, people start whistling and singing in the company bus. Towards the end of the first day, both of us were summoned by our training supervisor. So, we’ve to prepare design documents for distillation and heat transfer, which, would take loads of theoretical studying and sifting.
On the second day, our tables are assigned and this is where my ordeal begins. I get a table right in front of the floor entrance and all I get to hear all day long is “Peeeee Pee-pip”. Apparently, some SRF techno-freak decided to install access machines at every floor entrance….and nobody protested.
So, every time the machine’s used, which, gallingly, happens quite a lot, “Peeeee Pee-pip” rams its way through my ears and down the auditory canals to the tympanic membranes. Well, I know so much because I tried to find a solution to the problem by studying the whole hearing system. Anyway, I get to hear the sound when I’m about to sleep while studying, when I wake up, while I’m concentrating on the gargantuan work at hand, while having lunch and while all other nominal activities in between, which includes studying. What unnerves me even more is the fact that it can possibly attack my subconscious when I’m half-asleep, studying. I don’t want to become a pee-holic/peep-aholic/whatever. The only gratifying fact is that I’ll get an access card soon and can then, make the sound come out of the @#$ing machine anytime I want. In a way, I’ll conquer the sound, rule over it. It’ll play to my tunes…and, I’ve already started losing it.
While writing this post, I got two more reasons to crib about. First, a Punjabi ringtone. The guy, brazenly, never puts his cell on silent mode. Second, another guy talking on his phone as loudly as pot-bellied neighbourhood Sharmaji laughing at his jokes and as brazenly as the previous guy. Another observation, the guy seems to be under a strange illusion that a well-formed English sentence must comprise of at least four “like”s and have to be pronounced as likeuhh. Annoying, brain-jamming, to say the least.

P.S. Thank god Sahee’s here. The F in SRF is fibres and not fertilizers. There’s one cute girl in the office. Whippiee.