Rewind!

Life is wheezing past and before I realize, it would be beyond repair. At every juncture of my life prior to yesterday, I had pure confidence that I had all this life mystery sorted out. Before I moved to college, had acne and the physical realization of the fact that hairy apes were indeed my forefathers, I wasn't seriously aware that innocent fun would give way to lunatic responsibilities of life.

This gradual realization was painfully slow. School was just a necessary evil. Teachers were perhaps incompetent people thrown in from Jails, to allow our parents to have a jolly time while their liabilities were away. Dad and Mom were perhaps some people who had always been there, I didn't know why. I always wanted to be with them, a kind of dependency which I never questioned and was perhaps not concerned the least about. Only when my sister was born and I lost my coveted place in their bedroom to her that I had this "Buddha" enlightenment of the fact that there was something happening to my life which was, to say the least, disconcerting.

Closets suddenly became too small for me to hide. Even if I did manage to shove myself in, nobody would come looking for me and I had to come out myself and yell "Here I am!!!". Slowly and slowly many such symbolic closets grew too small for me and I find myself out of college, working a thankless 12 hours a day job for people who are as nice to me as the small claustrophobia-inducing wooden closets!

Why does life have to be this way? Why, at every stage of your life, you realize that the younger you were, the better off you were? When we know that younger is better, why can't life be the other way round? Growing Young instead of Old. Losing Age instead of gaining.
Rewind!

Imagine being a born a 80 year old with kids and grandkids to look after you (lets leave out the biology behind this to god).
You may rue your wrinkled skin and shriveled what not for now, but as you start losing age, the feeling can only turn for the better. In about 20 years time your retirement period would be over and at 60 you would probably land a top job. The first 20 years, however, would have some distressing moments as you see your grandkids grow young and vanish whence they came from. However, for you, things would only turn for the better. Teeth would grow "back", you would be able to walk on your own and surprisingly, as a 20 year "young" (lets call it that) you would earn more respect than a 20 year "old" would have - People would be listening to YOU instead of the other way round. In professional life, you would move down the hierarchy but you would have earned so much in the earlier part of your life to lose sleep over it. And for a fact, we know in this life that the higher you grow the more you realize how better off (except for the money) you were earlier. The vigour in your life would continue to grow. The slow drudging morning walk will give way to a jog. Grey hair will turn to black. Fat will turn into muscle. Belly will give way to abs. To the Young kids who teased you by calling you "oldie", you could retort back by saying "With one leg hanging in your womb, you should be nursing your last fews days, kiddo!".

You will start looking forward to your 30s when you will get rid of your wife and will finally get to flirt openly.

Time will come when jazzy kids who cared a naught for you, will finally come to be dependent on you. Then you would make them realize how respecting their parents would have given them a better childhood. In our life old people have to resign to whatever treatment they receive from their children (old age home, neglect etc). In this life, you will get payback time. Replace their Nikes, Jockeys and Playstations with Bata, Rupa and Ludo respectively. Bash them up, send them to boarding schools and when they return younger, sell off their toys to the local pawn shop.

Being 60 years young (20 year old otherwise) and looking back at your life, you would most likely not feel nostalgic about your life before. You would probably look ahead to the last 15 years of your life - a paradigm shift in the way people spend their last years - play hide and seek, get chased by mom, ride roller coasters, watch cartoon movies, get rocked in a crib and in the last few months, cry so hard and hoarse to keep your parents awake all night that they actually feel relieved when you are gone!!! Good riddance. No post-death guilt for your ghost too :-)

I can probably write a book on this stuff but by the time I complete it, I would probably be more old and miserable. Sitting here and hallucinating, I wish how nice it would have been, if atleast, Gandhi had grown younger, visited a trendy pub and after being knocked out, declared that 2nd October no longer be a dry day!