Just a thought

You never grow old

Yamin Tauseef Jahangir

LIFE has always been full of experiences. Most of us in our childhood must have had few things that were larger than life and we never thought we could let go of them. Be it a Barbie, or a teddy bear or even the pencil box which made you to be the coolest person at school, they did possess certain value to your world and were indeed indispensable. As life moved on, you grew up in your mind and your adolescence got locked up in the casket filled with wonderful memories. Even then at times a question remains whether you were a grown up altogether, or if there is still a part of you that craves to bring back the childlike innocence that you once had to win over the world.

I have seen people themselves playing with Lego toys when they spend their time with the kids. Some also go on watching Dragon Ball-Z or Thunder Cats when they are back from office at 11 at night. As for my brother, I even see him picking up a fight with his three year old daughter just to have a bite on the choc bar ice cream. There is a certain side of us that radiates the youthful exuberance whenever it breaks free from the shackles of a monotonous life. You dance in the most bizarre manner whenever you play a 70's song, probably when no one is at home and probably, try out the same moves you did some twenty years back. At times you cannot resist the temptations of buying the matchbox cars and you claim it for your toddlers while the truth is, they are too small to understand the toys. Some even have the fascination over stationeries and I guess it never dies. I still go on seeing my colleagues and friends to fiddle with the colourful notebooks and stick pads and they would just love to spend hours and be totally engrossed in the aura of being a teen. It is a regular scenario to see a lot of people just holding on to the last hope of being young. Like admit it, you really don't feel good when you notice a string of white hair or a wrinkled skin trying to make you confess that you should have a different title from now on.

Although there remains a huge generation gap, but now a days it is a common scenario to see the people from the age of 60s and that of the 20s to bond over common grounds and it rekindles the essence of being young again. Some of us don't act our age; when asked why we really cannot explain it in simple terms and rather come up with excuses to justify what we did was the right thing to do. Sometimes we make ourselves to be the laughing stock in public and do feel embarrassed, but we actually don't mind repeating it the next time, and when that happens, surprisingly we are ecstatic. I'm sure there are many amongst us who go through the 'slam books' and drift away down memory lane and the next very moment you would find yourself wearing the same old clothes or watching some classic movie while you drool on being as ever green as one can think of.

It doesn't matter what people think of you, or how they take it whenever you are in the transition of staying bold and beautiful. If you think you can pull it off well then so be it. As for keeping yourself in the same shoe like everyone else, you only grow old when you think you have become one, otherwise it is just fine to enjoy your ice cream scoop and spill it all over your clothes, scream at the top of your voice when your team scores, play practical jokes with your annoying neighbour and brag about how many Tin Tin or Asterix comics you have got in your collection. Trust me, it is just fine.

Photo: Mike Harrington/ gettyimages