I knew I was 50 when

The fact that I’m reacting to my 50th birthday that passed away in the last week of November now, is only one symptom of what age does to you. If, indeed this is a ‘golden’ milestone, then surely, there’s more to the sunset than just its colour! At this poignant juncture, which happily coincides with the turn of a calendar year as well, do you remember the brilliant brightness of the day that’s gone past, or build a shiny edifice for the one that’s to follow? Do you sink deep into the darkness that’s about to fall or remember how you lifted yourself from the nightmares you’ve been through?

Whatever one’s style of pontification, one can’t escape certain realisations and truths about life at this point. So, I knew I was 50 when:

1. I didn’t get up on my birthday expecting everyone to be really nice to me just because I happened to be one of the thousands who was born that particular day.
2. I calculated that, being the optimist that I am, I’m still younger than many of my class-fellows from school.
3. I found that I’d started noticing attractive women 35 years or older.
4. My girlfriend started treating me more like a buddy and her kids, like a grand-daddy.
5. ‘Just Do It’ began to sound more like a sexual imperative than a call to good health.
6. I felt convinced that since there was no scientific or for that matter even historical basis for the claim 'naughty at forty' I could seriously have 'naughty at fifty' as my inspiration for the next decade.
7. I finally started treating my wife as my buddy, even though I can no longer eat her ‘mooli-ka-parathas’ because they’re not a patch on my mother’s.
8. I began eating 4 and 6-egg omelettes in a bid to quickly finish the quota destined for me.
9. I stopped answering all texts on occasions like Diwali and Christmas as my contribution to puncturing the self-esteem of those moronic Service Providers.
10. I no longer jumped 2 steps at a time to get to my second-floor bedroom, yet spent double the time walking on the treadmill than the year before.
11. I basically figured out the difference between proteins and carbs, and bad
carbs and worse carbs.
12. I understood that because matter is convertible, I’ll eventually lose weight when I turn into gas, but I’m hoping it won’t be too pungent and obnoxious.
13. My knees started aching after a half-day climb in the hills.
14. My bar was stocked full of the choicest alcohol, yet I couldn't partake any of it for fear of upsetting my gym instructor.
15. I finally got the toned body that I wanted, albeit after a delay of some 25 years, but which nevertheless helps me hide some of them.
16. I started ruffling up my hair and puffing out my chest every time I glanced at my reflection, in a vain attempt to catch my own attention.
17. I began wearing tight jeans, T-shirts and sneakers with a vengeance that surprised even myself.
18. I figured that I could no longer drive non-stop, all day and night, much as I fancied.
19. I started driving slower than usual, persuaded that my car had equal rights to live through its designated life, too.
20. I finally gave up cursing at other drivers on the road mainly because I ran out of creative expletives.
21. I began to agree that the journey was the real thing, and the destination just a brief pause until the next one.
22. I stopped measuring success in rupees and curves, and started focusing on inches and mass instead.
23. I gave up thinking I was brilliant at any one particular thing, but realized I was moderately good at anything I attempted: a sort of all-trades Jackass.
24. I discovered it’s better to build lives than institutions, and if you’re lucky, yours would be included in that process.
25. I came to grips with the idea of enjoying the moment chiefly because I’d forget if today was yesterday or tomorrow.
26. I started fighting for the remote in a bid to spend quality time with myself.
27. I figured that winning the National Lottery would give me considerably less pleasure than spending an evening with Monica Belluci.
28. I started calling up my boys at least once a day, just to chat up about nothing in particular, only to be told that they were busy, and that I would get a call back.
29. I started hating hospitals like the plague, and decided that the gym, though a bit more tiring, is definitely the better place to spend my remaining time in.
30. I grew a deep distrust of doctors in general and slick-looking, glib-talking, hip-shooting, foreign-returned ones working in upscale hospitals (read hotels) in particular.
31. I wrote down a list of some 10 things to do before I get Alzheimer’s, but haven’t been able to locate that sheet of paper since.
32. I lost the taste for management books and instead enjoyed reading Hinduism’s Seven Spiritual Laws.
33. I admitted that focus is a good deal better than multitasking, unless of course, one’s talking about sex.
34. I figured why Somerset Maugham called life a piece of carpet that you unraveled, one thread at a time.
35. I stopped treating ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’ as bad words.
36. I realised that the number of friends on my Facebook is not likely to cross the average120, so I might as well give up visions of inching close to the number my kids can boast of.
37. I realised that almost always, my emails and texts contain full words and proper grammar and punctuation, but almost never any emoticons.
38. I gave up remote control of my kids’ lives (well, almost!).
39. I could relax in the back seat of my car while my sons took turns driving it.
40. I started believing we should've had more kids if only to fill up all these damned rooms we've built in our house.
41. I figured it's better to be a nail than a hammer, as it's too tiring to keep hitting someone's head beyond a point.
42. I noticed that though I continue to have the recurring dream where I'm running without any clothes on, my speed is considerably slower.
43. I started missing my parents more than ever.
44. The new four-letter words that crept into my vocabulary included ‘life’ and ‘will’.
45. I discovered that gains became more a factor of relationships than financial investment.
46. I realized vision had almost always to be supported not by good sense but by spectacles.
47. I learnt that it’s better to call up friends to express your love before it’s too late, even if it means leaving a message in their voice-mail box.
48. I discovered that there are now too many Namits around, and that hardly does any good for my self-esteem, going forward.
49. I learnt that 50 is just another number, though not quite like 25.
50. I learnt that reaching 50 was easier than writing this piece, and there’s no way I’ll attempt this exercise when I turn 100.

Birthday-eve blues

There’re just 17 days to go. Not that I’m worried anymore about the impending date. Or, unusually thrilled, for that matter. But because 27th November is going to be my 48th birthday, it’s not a date I’m likely to overlook in a hurry.

Good time, I reckon, to introspect. Balding old men in spectacles do that, I’m told. If nothing else, it helps keep the gray matter, well, gray. Not that I’m in a mood to meet Mr Alzheimer in a hurry—no sir, I prefer Michelle Pfeiffer and so what if she doesn’t know about my existence yet—I still think I have some good years left!

So what does the scene look like, when you’ve completed at least half your allotted home runs, huffing and puffing, but still think you’re fit enough to face the pitcher?

First realisation is, you can still play ball, if you can see the damn thing after all these years. Admittedly not all that big as before, but still sizeable, you have to admit. Now, everybody knows that ball-sizes matter, so don’t confuse this with anything else—not even the size of my ego. On the other hand, if you believe that egos have a way of adding on inches with age, don’t worry, my frequent trips to the gym have ensured that I simply keep expanding my chest to keep it in.

In either case, one can still hit a mean ball and that’s a fair point at this age. But this isn’t about being able to fend for oneself—that’s still eminently do-able: at this juncture one often tends to pontificate about the larger issues in life. Should one have candy-floss if one feels like, for instance, or walk about naked when there’s no one home?

To which an Existentialist must come up with Existentialist answers, I suppose, or better still, answer with more Existentialist questions. OK, so here goes: at 48, has one really achieved what one had to? What else is left? Has one secured the lives of his progeny? Has one found real happiness? And of course, the biggest one of them all—what next?

In case you haven’t caught on yet, I fancy Existentialism. Not because I necessarily believe in it that much, but because I like the way one pronounces ‘Sartre’ or ‘Kafka’. And what exactly is my Sartorial or Kafkaesque state on the eve of my 48th birthday?

In retrospect, it’s not really that different from when I was a child: except for some very minor points, which don’t really count in the Existentialist world. For earlier on, I believed I was born to make a difference to this world—now I believe this world was born to make a difference to me; earlier I thought older people were wiser—now I think younger people are; earlier only I thought I was good-looking—now the whole world disagrees with me; earlier I thought building a house and ensuring a good life for my kids was a major milestone—now my kids don’t think so. The list is endless, but like I said, if you take a bigger, Existentialist view of things, it hardly matters.

All of which proves just one thing—that one tends to come full-circle at this point in his life, an amplification in other words, of the tautology that the earth is round. And what makes me say that?

Very simply this—that whereas earlier I was anxious and always wondering how and whether one was important in the scheme of life, now I feel exactly the same way, except for a small detail: the anxiousness is gone, and there’s a happier acceptance of the fact that one doesn’t really matter at all. Life has gone on and will go on, whether I live another 50 years or 5, in much the same way.

So the questions can wait, as can the answers, I suppose. For another year, or another 100. Meanwhile why not enjoy the 48th year of Existence like none before: after all, nothing really matters, and of course, no one’s looking!