The Two Ends of Twenty....

So tomorrow, you enter the world of twenty.
Happy Birthday Amna!!!!! :)

She mourns the eminent end of her teenage years..but only just so lightly. There isn't much of a difference between 19 and 20 anyway.
She asks me, where were you for your twentieth birthday? What did you do?
And I think.....when was I twenty?
I am still thinking...I was in Delhi...I am more-or-less sure of that geographical detail..but what did I do? Who was I with? How did I 'celebrate' it? Cake? Party? What?
I am still drawing a complete blank.

Her mother's warned her that she is no longer eligible to throw tantrums. Teenage dramatics are now going to be a thing of the past. Alright. But teenage dramatics? Is being twenty a numerical indication of entering 'adulthood'?
And 'Adulthood'? Really!!!!
I can already see a lot of words (in quotes) getting tagged along with this number. Conclusion? It's NOT just a number. Our saying that is just a defense mechanism.
Will things change from nineteen to twenty? What does twenty look like to you?
Her answer? A bucket list of sorts....
A bucket list- a list of things to do before you die. And to continue with the morbid element here....The phrase 'bucket list' owes its origin to the idiom 'kicked the bucket' which, in turn, means to die. And how exactly did the bucket find itself getting associated with death? I leave it for another time..though apparently the association traces itself back to 16th century England (did a 16th century English bucket look any different from the present day English bucket?)
So well, at a day less than twenty, she is already making a bucket-list (of sorts I should add). Obviously I remember my list of things to do..We did not call it a bucket list back in those days (yes its been that long now and I guess we have only Rob Reiner to thank for the revival of the popularity of the term...). How many of those things have I done? I remember a couple of them...
-Watch Coldplay live in concert (present status: Not Done)
-Go scuba diving (present status: Not Done. I don't even know how to swim!!!!)
-Read all of Wodehouse (present status: Not Done)
-Learn how to drive ( Present status: Done, but I still do not have a license..and this was pretty sad an inclusion for a bucket list)
-A world trip (present status: halfway done with a fortnight of tripping through Europe)
I will dig out the list when I go home the next time. But I can already see that scarp of paper weigh heavier on me with silent accusations of things not done, a life not maximized and time lost.
Life becomes a list of things...drat!
Should I draw a conclusion? Do I have the time to draw one and dwell on it?
Down with the list anyway.

So twenty was and is no different than nineteen...I believe that.
But twenty is different (and radically so) from twenty six...
From the other side of twenty five, everything before looks easier and sweeter..Please do not argue with me about the beauty of nostalgia..blah blah blah!!!!
Its been seven years since I left school...the old slide by the jack-fruit tree in school was razed to ground. We grew up. Things died and space was created. Keeping up with time they say...I guess the new kids would not have known what to do with the slide anyway. Would they have googled it?
I completed my graduation and my masters. I worked for a year and then returned to academics. From this delusional return, I think increasingly that I am only wasting my time and not really facing the existential questions of (ahem...gulp) adulthood.
And now more than ever, I have to bear social pressures of fulfilling medieval gender roles and responsibilities. Marriage apart, at twenty-six, I am already being reminded of the ticking clock.
I am twenty six ONLY!!! That's me...
You are twenty six ALREADY!!! That's them..
So much of a difference between only and already...
The year of the proverbial 'quarter life crisis' is over but the crisis itself is not.

At twenty a lollipop would have been a juvenile idea. Rather, I would have forgotten about the idea and taste of a lollipop. At twenty six, making my way through one simply made my day..It was a beautiful lollipop I must add...with blues, greens and pale yellows swirling their way through its sugar sprinkled circle of a self.

At twenty, getting dunked in the mud and then kicked black and blue on your birthday would have been an uncalled for affront. At twenty six (while still being an uncalled for), it makes for a good laugh..

At twenty, spending an entire Sunday playing scrabble would have been a waste of time. At twenty six, spending an entire Sunday with those creamy white tiles and a scoreboard, no no wait...first running out in a good-by-Delhi-standards rain, checking through five shops for the game and then insisting on only buying the Leo Mattel one...that makes perfect sense.
At twenty, you dream of working, money and your own bank account. At twenty six, you contemplate about the inclusion of a provision in your work contract which would allow you to walk out when things get too boring.
At twenty, you have to figure out how to convince your parents to buy you a new laptop/ipod/android(take your pick please). At twenty six, you have EMI's to handle.

There are six years between twenty and twenty six. But right now, they seem a world apart to me. I cannot imagine moments of collusion between twenty and twenty six. But they exist I am sure...

But on being twenty, its a simple birthday wish I send across to my young friend...May you fall back in love with the lollipop sooner than twenty six.
Happy Birthday :)