Thought Crimes

A lot has happened since my last post. Vicissitude seems to have been in vogue. Australia has won the World Cup. Man U the Premiership (We are the Champions). Raps and Lefty finally won a quiz. Ash got married. Surprisingly, so did Abhishek Bachchan. As far as that esoteric science of studies is concerned, I hit rock bottom. I also almost scaled the top. Wish the almost could’ve been in the other sentence. The end-sems came. The end-sems went. Lefty braved the onslaught, steady as a rock. Doomdsday has not yet arrived, but that’s another story altogether. The story that will be lamented in this post is that the Wall has been scaled.

It still seems yesterday that I ceased to live in a city. Yet I realize that I’ve been forced to blend with the landscape here. I am now one of the crowd, firmly rooted in this ghetto of geeks, goofs and almost-girls. Time certainly flies by, and it has flown me past the Wall. The Wall that firmly demarcated the Young from the Young at Heart. That separated the enthusiastic doers from the lackadaisical thinkers. The Wall that told you that you had reached the halfway point of your time here. It seems ludicrous, it doesn’t sound true and I certainly don’t look the part but I am now a Third Yearite. But then, maybe I do look the part. Maybe there’s too much wisdom in my eyes, as Phoebe told Joey.

The other side of the wall is all about Grand Old Men. The light at the end of the tunnel becomes visible and you spend your time scavenging for interns, preparing for the all important upcoming exams and awing the greener side with your R wisdom. While the second year retains vestiges of its youth through contact with the first, the third are far removed from anything new.

Great responsibility is supposed to come with great power, not with great age. Why then am I expected to become all-knowing now? Why should I dole out advice to all and sundry when I could do with the same myself? The two paths ahead of me are clearly illuminated. Either become one of the Wise Ones and lose all hopes of ever indulging in the indiscretions of youth, or become one of the outcasts, to be frowned upon by peers and laughed at, or worse still, remain unknown to your juniors. Of this other side, what I’ve seen, what I’ve known would probably turn Medusa into stone. But I’m at the wall and I’m waiting there for you. Or are you inconsolable too? (Metallica’s playing in the background).

A short affair with civilization, and I’ll be back, mature and sagacious. I’ll have anecdotes to dish out at appropriate moments and a panacea for all problems, be it just a placebo. The tales of my youth will now be part of the stuff that forms the R folklore. Orphaned and childless, I might even have grandsons who I wouldn’t want to disown. Perhaps then it’ll remind me that it’s not so bad. It’s not so bad.

# posted by Saagar @ 8:39 am