Apu’s World

Turning thirty is believed to be a significant moment in an individual’s life. It is not as though the first thirty years don’t have their own milestones. At nine or ten, we enter middle school; I remember how thrilled I was - finally, finally, I was allowed to discard the pencil and take up a pen. For a child, the first pen is a milestone. There are others - leaving school, graduating, turning eighteen, getting married - all these are major occasions. But, somehow, in the twenties, time runs along in such a manner as to suggest that each person gets an infinite amount of it. This night of drunken revelry, those friends made and discarded after a summer internship, the endless experimenting with one’s hair under the assurance that it will grow out alright - all of this seems like it can go on forever.

Turning thirty is not the same. Or atleast, we are primed to expect that it cannot be the same. Those who’ve been there before, warn us that thirty is a big, bad word. Thirty is the end of seeing oneself as young, thirty is when you start being aunty to all the world, thirty is the loss of casual flirting, thirty is the beginning of the end of all things.

Having heard all this, when I turned thirty a few months earlier, I was somewhat surprised when the birthday went by with not even a whimper. I searched myself for feelings of depression, sadness or even just a bit of anxiety. Drew a blank. A day went past, a week, and then another. I felt the same as ever - just as young or as old as I always did. When I look in the mirror, I see of course, evidence of time passing by. I no longer have the stick thinness of my youth as I settle into the hip-heavy figure of the average Indian woman. My face looks fuller, and older in some undefinable way. But, inside, I feel the same as I always did.

It is not that I close my eyes to the movement of time. When I see my parents ageing, when back pain and dizziness and afternoon naps become a routine rather than an event, I am forced to acknowledge that time is passing. Perhaps, even at a pace faster than I would prefer. When faint acquaintances tell me that my biological clock is ticking, there is no denying the pressure to hurry along a child into this world. Still, is it a feeling of immortality or just laziness that I rarely succumb to the insistence of time? Sometimes, it does seem as though time is moving along faster than I can complete everything I’d like to do. But, for the most part, I am happy to be doing whatever it is I’m doing at the moment, and let each day takes it’s course.

(This post was sparked by Shefaly’s post on the passage of time, which in turn was inspired by Usha’s post on the newness of things)

apu In General