25 “Cool” things about being 25 ©

I started this note thinking I would write 25 things I have learnt (pun-intended) in 25 years but I realized I had already done something similar a few months back and then I was back to square one with nothing to write about. I wanted to write something related to 25 and hence thought of doing something different with it. 25 with a twist?!

So why did I want to write about this particular age? When I was young“er”; I would get into arguments with my parents which would go something like this-

Them (as usual the set of them ganged up against me):  “No Ramneek, you are still a kid and you need to listen to us!”

Me: “I am not a kid. I am 15/16/17/18/19/20... and I am quite capable of making my own decisions. It’s my life!”

Them: “Don’t be in a hurry to grow up beta; this time will never come back.”

We all have had this sort of argument with our parents’ right? And everytime they said something to the like of ‘don’t be in a hurry to grow up’ I would roll my eyes and silently wonder what the whole good deal was about being kids and promise myself that this is something I would never tell my children. I don’t have children yet, I am not even married but I know for a fact that this is something I am also going to say to my children probably a hundred times more than my parents said it to me. Now I do wish someone would call me a kid and take my decisions for me. When you are put in unpleasant and tough situations; a part of me still wants to pause it and rewind time and go back to being a child again. Getting up in the morning, fighting with my parents every single day over breakfast they forced me to eat and then going to school. The other day I was sick and had unavoidable work at office for a few days and I remembered how easy it was when we were younger, fall sick and voila there was a sick leave and mommy dearest taking care of you at home and we actually got to watch unlimited TV. A flu/viral was actually like a little mini vacation in those times. Here in office you fall sick; you have two options. Options 1; go to work no matter how you feel or option 2; dare to take a holiday and suffer the consequences (shudder). So yes this is the inevitable circle for your life, we all are destined to become our parents. It is true. Don’t believe me now? Let’s talk about this in another 10 years, when there is a spouse on your head and two or three or one (if you are the less the more types) child/children trotting around you.

So in this depressive state of affairs I decided to cheer myself up and jot down 25 things I learnt in 25 years which has now turned into 25 cool things about being 25. Yay! Something to make being in my mid 20s feel less adult than it honestly really is. Don’t be shocked guys; I am sure we will find 25 cool things. Hope for it! Here goes.

1. First and foremost- why did I even want to write a note titled ‘25 things I have learnt in 25 years’? Because growing older makes you want to share your knowledge! One of the perks of being an adult and growing up is getting to share your life experiences or so called leanings with those younger. Ahan. The more the wrinkles the more the ‘tazorba’. So basically since I don’t have kids right now and yet feel old I had this parent-‘ly’ feeling; the feeling we dreaded as kids; that is; of shedding some life knowledge and feeling oh so grown up (in the good way).You have gyaan to share darlings! And the younger 20-21 year olds might actually think you know what you are talking about and look upto you (yes you, imagine)!
2. Well, you can officially drink now. Okay so you were grooving with drinks in your hands when Hard Kaur sang ‘ek glassy do glassy teen glassy char’ but doesn’t it feel nice that now you can do it legally? Admit is baby, it sure does!
3. Alcohol tastes better. Ofcourse we had it when we were younger but it was more due to peer pressure and to look cool (admit it, you did). Now you have “acquired” the taste and unless you are my best friends (:P) you definitely know how to hold your booze better than you did when you were 18.
4. You make money! Maybe it isn’t all that much but alteast it’s something right, atleast when you spend a little too much doing that shopping/ online shopping you don’t feel as guilty about it, only broke much before the month ends.
5. You have better control over your hair. You know how to manage it and how to make it pass through a bad hair day. This has been one big victory. Final score- You 100, Hair 99.
6. Remember when we look at old photographs and can’t stop laughing over how bad our dressing sense was in Class 9th or 10th? Well chances are that ten years down the line we would still slightly look down on the clothes we are wearing today but it would only be slightly. We do have better control over clothes now! We are done with awkward styling & experimenting of the early 20s and have now found the clothes that are our second skin. Thankfully!
7. You have much become much better at identifying bitches & assholes. When we were younger it took us months to come to the realization that about somebody’s bad behaviour was an inherent part of their crappy personality and not just a one off incident. Now we have come to accept that some people are born like that and we have become trained to spot them easy, maybe not as easily as we would want..well we will get there too.
8. You are 25. It is a cool number really. 5 multiplied by 5!! Haha. Okay this one was random but it counts.
9. Not having to study or prepare for exams! No matter how late I work in office some days or how sometimes have to work over weekends, I do not want to go back to giving exams. Period.
10. The much better relationship you share with your parents. It’s simply beautiful how as you grow older parents turn from your care takers; to the ones who seem to not let you do anything; to the ones you rebel against; to the ones who support you; to your best friends and confidants.
11. The evolved relationship with your siblings. At one time you fought with them and hated their guts but now you know who has your back and forever will- them.
12. Having friends you have known for ages. By the time you are 25 you have gone through a lot of friends and have identified your special ones and chances are you have now known them for quite a while which is a brilliant because they feel like your second family. The idiots you love to pieces and who love you back.
13. Your dreams are realistic now. The best thing about being a child is having infinite dreams and not having the wisdom to know that some of them can never come true. It is true bliss. Dreaming and believing it would come true. But as we grow older reality does set in and it sort of hurts, dreaming even when you know it is not a possibility. By the time you are 25 you get more realistic and dream accordingly. And isn’t that good?
14. You know what you don’t want in life. You are far away from knowing what you want in life and are probably going to fall, err, cry, heal and find your way a 100 more times before you know what you want but what you don’t want, that is pretty much mapped out in your head and more so in your heart.
15. You understand the X rated jokes now without having to pretend laugh to save face because you have not understood a word. This happened a lot when you were 20. Remember watching Sex and the City when you were 18 and you could not make sense of a lot of the stuff the girls talked about? It happened with Friends too where in some episodes they cracked these jokes and you would wonder to yourself what did it mean. Well atleast that’s over.
16. You know yourself much more and are connected with yourself. This is one of the most important connections you have to make in life. As life moves on you will change and evolve but the connection you have made with yourself will just grow along with. Do not let it go, develop it more.
17. Chances are that if you are a girl living in our dear India, you have always had a deadline and your parents have always been super protective about you. It never goes away, ever. Infact as you grow older even your elder siblings especially brothers start being super protective. But by the time you are 25; your parents have made peace with the fact that you are a grown up (probably not as much as you would wish they would) and your deadlines have either extended by a lot or gone away completely. And if you are a girl trust me this is one of the biggest plus points of this age.
18. You are still capable of partying the entire night and picking up your tired ass and going to work the next day. Yes, you crazy 21 year olds, Booyahhhh!!!! Not only do we party, ‘partaaaaaay’ style but we also are responsible enough to wake up and go make world changing decisions (well fine, go make presentations/reports/analysis/sales) the next day while you will just pick you lazy ass to go sleep in a lecture.
19. Your wardrobe is amazingly huge now, only if you are a girl. If you are guy I am sure you still just have 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of t-shirts, 2 pairs of trousers, 2 pairs of shirts & 2 pairs of shoes. Uff, these men never change! So us girls, we have a lot of shoes and clothes, everything for every occasion, for every weather, for every mood..but yes, we will still cry about how we have nothing to wear.
20. Your music taste has become so much more awesome now. You like different varieties of music & are not just an Akon/ Atif Aslam loyalist anymore. Or for that matter, a Himesh Reshamiya loyalist singing- Tera tera teraaa surooor:P
21. In the journey to turning 25, chances are that in all likelihood you have conquered one great fear of yours till now. Think about it. There has to be something. For me, growing up with just one elder sibling and not many cousins I never had any young kids around when I was a teenager. So I had developed a fear of holding kids, I honestly always thought I would drop them. Well I have overcome that atleast; without actually dropping one. About time.
22. Parents finally understand when you tell them you need space. It seems that the manuscript given to Indian people once they become parents specifies to always mollycoddle your child. After a bad day or a bad fight with someone, I remember so many times telling my  parents that I wanted to be alone, I don’t think they understood it ever because they did the exact opposite of it. Admittedly I am thankful for that but sometimes you just need a little tiny space. By the time you turn 25, your parents understand that. Finally.
23. Well okay, so yes half the people I know are either married or somewhere along the path of going into holy matrimony. If we look at it one way, it sucks. But every cloud has a silver lining my friend. The more of marriages, the more of awesome clothes I get to buy, the more of awesome shoes to go with it, the more of awesome snaps I get to take, the more of crazy parties I get to attend and let me tell you, there is no crazier party than a Punjabi marriage function party! You think you saw cocktail? Well attend a Punjabi cocktail and you will know what the real cocktail is!
24. You have better control over your weakness for something. Like that liking for chocolate which was ridiculously a lot since I was a kid, well that has reduced and now I can easily stop myself from having a piece of chocolate when offered one and saying no. Self control, which is what you learn with age. Umm, writing about chocolate reminds me that there is this Mars bar lying in my fridge. Hmmmmm. Scratch the self control, point 23 is deemed invalid :P
25. And finally the 25th.....You are older but not old enough. Which means that it will be a long long long longgggg while before we grow up completely and stop being stupid and silly. So we can be adults without being all the way there. We are 25 and not 30 yet ;)

Napster

1^st August 2001- 26^th June 2012

They say it’s you who takes care of your dog, but isn’t it really your dog who takes care of you? They are always there- happy when you are happy, counselling you when you are low, giving you a warm fuzzy hug and lick when you cry and helping you feel needed when you feel useless. They are there every step of the way.

My Napster, was all this and more. For almost 11 good years. Born 1^st August, he came to our lives on 12th September 2001. We had been wishing for him for a few years, pleading with our parents; telling them how we will take care of him and they would not have to, how we would clean him, walk him, brush him, feed him- all the things teenagers say to convince their parents to let them keep a dog. His name came into our lives much before he did. Our mom heard us obsessing over the music downloading site called Napster and she decided pronto that this is what we would name our future dog.

The day he came into our lives, he came with a bang. The decision had been taken and we were going to get a dog. Parents had found out from where and when. The date had been set. The whole day I remember going to school telling everyone who would listen that I was going to get a dog. I was on cloud nine. When we got home, we were totally excited and awaiting our dad’s return from work even more so than normal that day as he would get the dog. So our dad being the person who loves to surprise us, to throw us off track told mom to tell us he was not getting him as he could not find the way to the doctor he had to pick him from. She told us the same and so dejected we were. A few minutes later when the bell rang and we like we usually did went to meet dad, little did we know it was the last time only the 2 of us along with mom would run to the door when dad came. And there we saw..from dad’s coat was this black ball of softness coming out and we screamed in joy. Dad put him down and the sniffer got into his sniffing mania. He was super active! We were shocked. We thought pups were like cute, quite and not so active. That’s what they used to show in movies till then! When we all sat down he immediately came to me and started gnawing at my chappal and thinking it was just for now I gave it to him. How was I supposed to know this chappal eating would soon to become a habit (rokee mistake! In the future when our other two dogs came, chappals were the first things they were told NO for).

So his first night he slept in our room, shared by me and my brother. The whole night we were scared that he might climb our bed and bite us. HAHA. Not knowing then that his teeth could barely bite through bread forget out skin. From then on began the roller coaster ride..

Napster did not stop at chappals, within his first 6 months; he had eaten most of my chappals, the heel of my pretty new sandals, several chunnis of my mom, the socks and handkerchiefs of my dad..all this while when my brother was busy feeding him everything he himself ate- one French for Harpreet other French fry goes to Napster, I have photographed proof of this). Apart from all these dirty habits he had, I don’t think Napster himself knew he was a dog. He would not bark (dad even thought he was mute), he would not bark even if other dogs barked at him and he had absolutely no interest in meeting other dogs though if they were bitches he would put his flirt hat on (yes he was quite a Casanova- tried to flirt with two sisters at once!).

After he was about 3-4 months old, my dad asked me to live up to my promise of walking him. I remember the first evening I took him, I remember cursing him- he pooped in the middle of the road, went a little ahead and lied down. In the middle of the road! He would not get up even if I tugged at his leash, pulled him, pleaded with him..nothing worked! And then I had to turn back and take him back home. For that he got up and started walking. Smart ass! But this was only the start. After a few days when he realized I would not give up, he gave in and from then started our walking evenings. The dog could walk! He would walk fast, slow, medium pace..whatever I would want, how long I would walk. It became our time together. But fool you not; this was only with me..till date he was the most stubborn dog ever (even when he was not well, imagine that). He would walk fast, slow, medium pace but ‘his’ pace not yours. What he wants. With me, he let me guide him. With others he would always take the lead.  Over the years we have had many helps come and complain that- “Napster ne tu aaj mujhe gira hi diya..itna kheecha” ..and my mom would always apologize profusely to them and pretend to scold Napster.

Through his nearly 5 years as our only dog, Napster devoured in all the attention he got. In his second winter he was given a coat to wear, the sneaky little thing ate it! Yes he ate it! Ran away in a room and 10 minutes later when everyone was wondering where he is and looked for him, they found him sitting in one the beds in a room and eating his coat! Weird-‘ed’ by his behaviour, my brother went and got him a new coat, thinking he would feel too cold without it. And guess what Napster did? Within the next 1 week it was eaten too! So then silly us, got him another coat..and we all know what he did to that! I think Napster came into the right family, because my mom also took a stubborn stand and told us not to buy him any new coat. She took the last eaten away one, took one of my winter skirts and made him a ‘coat-a-skirty’. Haha. So for the next 2 winters Napster wore that and he didn’t eat it. We don’t know if it was because he actually loved it or because he understood that nothing new was coming for him.

As naughty as he was, Napster was also obedient. He has a huge vocabulary. Would not touch his food till he was told to- “Eat”. That is some self control. After his first 6 months, he would not litter in the house at all! He knew the classic handshake. My dad did train him well and he was an easy dog to train.

I remember when I read 'Marley and Me', Napster would have been 4 years old. I remember thinking that time that I could not ever imagine him not being here. And today that is a reality. What he meant to me and my family can never be put properly in words and the adventures we shared together can never be written in a few words. He touched not only our lives but the lives of all the people around us. My best friends, who used to be scared of Napster when I got to know them, now love him as much as I love him. My now bhabhi, when I got to know her as a friend, having a dog was one of the first few things in common we had and now she loved and took care of him like her own baby when he needed it the most.

All I can say is that he came into our lives and filled our hearts with love, so much love..he took love and he gave more of that back..he could not speak but his eyes spoke and they spoke about love and how he would always be there for us..he was funny, mischievous yet mature and cherished in all the attention he got..he loved us, the ac, the food and sniffing after Lizzie..he was special..he was a champion in every sense of the word.. and we will love him forever..our sweetest angel :* ..Take care, till we meet again :)

The last time I checked we weren’t celebrities or critics!! ©

Either someone is too thin or too fat..too fair or too tanned or too dark..put on a little weight or needs to lose a little..has lots of acne or too much of a porcelain skin that he/she looks pale..has a belly coming out or looks so anorexic that you can see his/her bones..someone’s dressing sense looks like he/she is from hell (ofcourse, only you could know what people in hell looked like) or someone dresses so fancy that it has to be daddy’s money (glad to know you are good at judging people’s financial wealth, maybe you do have a career calling in life after all)..

So what's the deal people? Where the hell and how the hell does so much judgement come by? Who are you to judge if someone needs to lose a little weight or go to a dermatologist? If that someone is okay with how they are and like it, who are you; that is matters to you? Aspiring to be a critic are we? Using all of us as your playground?

The last time I checked, we were not celebrities and our job was not that of a celebrity. So even if we don’t look perfect or have a few extra pounds or a few less pounds, trust me..it does not matter. I will still go to work and get paid the amount I always do. We are engineers, doctors, lawyers, researchers, marketers, managers and how fat or thin we look or how much acne we have will never effect how good our performance is at work. Though, if the next time they start paying me 2 lacs for one day of “appearance” at work I might consider looking perfect and working hard at it. So next time you want to judge me or the rest of us, give us 2 lacs each and we will take care and be perfect.

Sometimes living in a place like Delhi (I really don’t know where else such things happen) gets on your nerves and hence the ranting. Looking at a person, thinking he/she has gained weight etc etc is fine..come one we are humans, the observing creatures so we will observe, but passing a judgement as to how they look and how they should reduce weight and so on and so forth for all the other judgements we make is not cool. If a person is healthy, it is their wish how they look and if they want to change it, it is their choice.  Not yours. And unless you are their best or close friend, family, boyfriend/girlfriend etc, it’s really not your business to even give a suggestion.

If you are from Delhi, think about it..you will always know these girls/girl who whenever you meet will pass a judgment on your appearance- the weight you gained or lost, the acne that came or went, the puffiness or dark circles of your eyes and then all about the clothes you are wearing. And they will always do it with good facial expressions to make their judgements even more dramatic (open a drama school in Delhi, natural talent here). Whenever I meet someone like this I feel like slapping them. There outright, I have rage issues and I wish these girls knew before they passed judgement like that on me or anyone else. I often wonder, how do they even notice such things in the first place or keep track of them? Do they maintain a diary of such things (that vela)? And why do they do it? It is because they are constantly so insecure of how they look and feel they are under scrutiny so they must put everyone else under their scrutiny just to make themselves feel in control again?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Delhi but sometimes people do have a habit of getting too judgemental here. Why do people here care so much about how others look? Okay fine, there is a page 3 culture here which possibly is why people are so aware of the appearance aspect of self and others. But then that’s them, the socialites who have to keep the appearances. Why do normal girls want to emulate them? Even if they do, why do they want everyone else to emulate them and look perfect?

The saddest part is, it is mostly women who pass such judgements and impose them on men too. So it is a vicious circle right. The women in our city bringing the city down and the city bringing the women down.

(Short Story) The Pink B**** ©

1^st April 2011

It’s not easy admitting to you own self about how broken you are. Sometimes it is not easy even admitting that you are broken in the first place. You go to office, keep the un-bailable social engagements, sleep at a decent time, pick up no vices, smile when needed and laugh when required. It is tough for anyone to think that you are enduring a broken heart. And among all those games faces you put up, you yourself forget that it’s just a face to conceal the brokenness within. Sitting and crying in my mom’s lap, the one woman I love the most did the realization come to me- that it hurt like hell. And no matter how many games faces I had, there was no way to turn off the pain, no way to put it off any longer. I had a broken heart and a failed relationship. It was time to accept both those facts and move on.

For people like me, the ones who are totally control oriented, like knowing where their life is going, like being stable, like having safety net- this isn’t easy. The pain comes in not only admitting to others but most is admitting to self. That something you loved the most; failed. Something you were proud of; failed. The person who you were proud of; failed..you. Dawning? About time. At 25 years, the relationship I spent my early adult life in, spend my early adult life nurturing, failed me. Wow.

I went back to my room. Sat on the bed, placed my head between my own hands and cried. All I could think was that I felt alone. Screwed over. Taken for granted. Left. The last one rang over me, again and again and again. It was like someone had made a joke out my life- hey, here it is great relationship, bundles of love, so much happiness..never alone..<drum rolls>..oh we were kidding..you are meant to be alone and fucked up..

I met Rahul when I was 18, the first day of college. We had what you called the picture perfect romance. He saw me, I saw him..our eyes met..and that was it. We fell deeply madly in love with each other. The people stopped existing. It was just me for him and him for me. 4 years of togetherness during college. The next two years doing our MBA together, got into jobs in the same city and joined with plans to get married within one year. And it’s been one year. Look at where we are at.

15^th May 2011

I accept people cheat, people lie, and people do bad things. I get that sometimes there is no right or wrong and things aren’t always black or white. I accept that it can be grey but it would be gray with me is something I could not imagine. Rahul would cheat on me; I could not imagine or even dream of that. The only thing that made me feel better was that he came and told me what he did. He did not try to hide it. His honesty, it’s what made me love him so much and now it was what made me hate him. In my darkest alone times, I even wished that why did he tell me. I could have lived not knowing and thinking the best of him. It’s funny how our pain and desperation mixed together can make us wish for the stupidest things. A few times I even thought I should forgive him and let it g, so many women do it, why could I not? Plus I had a guy who was honest. So maybe it meant something. Luckily for me I snapped out of it when I thought such things. Made me realize, the human mind and heart when grappling with pain are totally willing to let the self respect go the shambles just to get out of the pain.

18^th November 2011

Days passed into weeks. Weeks passed into months. The smile on my face refused to return. My friends tried to get in but after facing the wall I put up for a few times, they gave up. Maybe that’s what I wanted. To be left completely alone. My family tried their best to cheer me up, to not leave me alone but there was only so much they could do. Rahul, well Rahul had decided to move on. He was now dating the girl he cheated on me with. I got to know this through one of my friends. This was a piece of information I would not want to know, she told me because she thought it would help me get out of this relationship. But unfortunately it put me deeper inside. Why was it that it was him the cheater..to so easily move on..but for me the cheated upon to still grasp onto the broken pieces of the relationship? How could he be so much more rational and understand that it didn’t work out and move on? Did he have a switch in his body with which he could turn our relationship off? Then why didn’t I? Why could I just not hate him and move on? I had said everything I ever wanted to him, I had abused him, cried infront of him and got all the feelings out of my system. But still I just could not get out. He was there living his life with nothing more than a memory of us and here I was trying to make sense of what happened.

Wake up. Office. Home. My life.

26^th February 2012

It’s almost going to be a year since I broke up with he who must not be named. Yes he is addressed as him or he who must not be named. I prefer thinking of him like Lord Voldemort, the evil force. Spending years with one person makes you so dependent on them that the first part of recovery post a breakup is actually leaning to live alone and be independent. There is no one to wake you up in the morning, no one to chat through the day, no one to instantly call when you have something to share, no one to meet and have dates with, no one waiting for you to go home and no one to wish sweet goodnights to. Worst of all, the feeling you have, the one where you always feel safe in your heart because you know there is someone out there for you who loves you like crazy, that feeling goes and all you are left with is emptiness. After living as two you are suddenly out all alone fending for yourself. Well I took it in steps.

Step 1, learning to be alone & not fearing it.

Step 2, reaching out to all my friends and family.

Step 3, keeping busy.

Step 4, not thinking about he who must not be named.

Step 5..well somewhere along the way of doing all those steps I realized, I really didn’t miss him that much anymore.

4^th April 2012

It’s been more than a year. I remember this time. I always will. I think of how I felt a year back and how I feel now. The pain has subsided. The life has resumed. Time does heal a lot of things. It does make the pain easier to deal with, the hurt to subside and the alone-ness to fade. The only thing it doesn’t do is teach you how to forgive. I keep hearing it will. I guess I need more time to reach that phase. I am over him, him as in Rahul. Yes we can name him now. He isn’t that evil. Maybe someday I will be friends with him and we will laugh back at what happened between us and I will pull his leg for cheating on me, I will understand what he did and forgive him. Someday, but not anytime soon. Till then I m happy hating him. Scratch that, disliking him. Hate is too strong a word. Hate is black. And since I can’t have white, I prefer to be in the pinks now. They are the girlier versions of the greys. He was only human because he cheated on me, I am also human so I can dislike him & etc etc..so all is fair. I heard somewhere that behind every bitch is a man who turned her into one. And bitches live in the pinks baby. Amen to that.