Growing up means forgetting tagging along and being on your own

As I look back now, growing up in the toddler years meant forgetting a thing called separation anxiety and being brave to go out with your head held high to the school where our rest of the years would be spent. I still remember crying like a small baby when my younger brother went to ‘the big school’. He didn’t cry but I did.

Growing up in school meant socialising, making friends and telling them that my mommy and daddy are nah! Not best but the best! It meant walking in a line for assembly, getting enamoured with eyes and voices and inanimate objects and thinking together how fascinating the adult worlds were. It meant punishments and rewards and a world where lots of ‘no’s’ and ‘yes’s’ existed. It was almost like Yes and No had become invisible people who were extremely important.

Then came the teen years, where growing up was of a different kind. One wondered how some boys were smaller than girls in class eight and suddenly got stretched in class nine?!! One saw bodies changing, pimples on faces that were clean and clear a year back. One heard ‘hush hush’ whispers. Rumours would be spread of someone having said ‘I love you’ to a girl and what not. Suddenly cute looking boys became more interesting, how come that never happened before? Yet the Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul series seemed more apt for the West than ‘our culture’. Growing up then also meant coming back home with the house key and giving food to your younger bro.

Then came the High School where ‘We were the Senior most’. The world, even as it revolved around studies, had a lot happening. Boys and girls would be called to the Princy’s office for God knows what. Every boy and girl that roamed around together would be tagged to be in a relationship. This heart kept the crushes for fear of rumours. The mind worked well for who was interested in some lame relationships? Yet this heart accepted and soothed pained tears of friend’s broken relationships. For years long this heart never understood the complexity of the phase called ‘being in love’; was it that complex? May be, just like 11^th Grade Trigo was!

Bachelors was another stepping stone. There I was imagining pursuing my subject in a co-ed college, sigh, they were none. It’s indeed surprise how life moves/runs/stops. When it does, it takes a while to get in sync with the pace, for you know you were walking as she was sailing. Studying in a hot girl’s college meant posh chauffeur driven cars and girls entering college with clutches and hot pants. The mind wondered if the girls were here for clubbing?! The level of studies increased. Looking back, the basic skills for life were gained then. This was also the time of leaving behind school buddies and looking forward to make new pals. Groups got formed, that of nerds, chilled out people, elite people and well rest I don’t remember.

The Masters called for an entrance exam. This mind only wonders the courage it took to leave a clichéd good university to get into a newly born university. Wow!!pat on the back! That was one Masters Program! The mind’s level increased. It studied Philosophy and got enamoured this time by the way those Great men thought. Growing up meant looking into your unconscious and realising the vast depth that lay in the mind and not only in the Sea. These years saw best buds getting into relationships and heart feeling immensely glad for them. It also meant waiting for dreams to get fulfilled of lovely blossomed roses and career that was yet in waiting.

Masters finished and the lil tiny foots then which had grown with years finally took some steps out in the world. Times went chasing, howling, cribbing, with moments of monotony of life that only felt dull and lifeless than anything. The life had come to a halt. The depressive halt moved gradually. When life stops, the air stops. The earth moves yet we are at halt. Not a single thing seems exciting for why would it, as others move your clock doesn’t tick tock!

And as the wind of the years long gone

Blows by my face today

I wonder, Oh Lord

How delightful has been life’s ways

Here am I, spending time with Life

She is beautiful to the core

Her magnanimous and magical rays

Now life is not about people

For the special  loved ones are intact

It’s about leading oneself ahead

Loving the self I have

Growing up evolves

Tears and laughs change

For reasons then seem petty now

Yet not so petty to forget……