Okay. before you start imagining things. This post is about a ‘vaikuntha samaradhana’ ( apparently a ritual to send a dead person to ‘Gods own country’) of a friend of my grandma’s that I attended.
Two thoughts.
1) When I saw her for the first time, she was around 75 and I was around 3 years old. She was a widow and was living with her son. Now, if I look back and compare our lives in the past 20 years, I cannot help but notice that my life has changed so much and her life had been pretty much the same. She was still living with her son and probably had the same kind of conversations with her grand children everyday. But I’ve gone places. So if I try to generalize it and plot a graph of new experiences (which I call ‘growth’) vs time, it will look something like this.
*As you can see, I’ve treated death as a major change.
So, after a certain point in your life, you will stop having new experiences and are bound to get stagnant. Your life gets monotonous. You get bored. That’s what I’ve seen. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it?
But as I was drawing this graph, I realized that in our early days, changes are built into our lives. New school, new friends, new places, new cities, college, getting a job, wedding, children etc etc. Something or the other keeps changing. But after that, we don’t have any major changes in our lives that happen automatically. So ‘growth’ as I call it is not a function of age but of change. All you have to do is to bring some changes into your lives and keep it new. Doesn’t sound that difficult! #relief
2) On a not so serious but important note, it’s irritating when people, that too people of your age, that too girls come and say ‘Bhargav, is that you? Oh my God, I couldn’t recognize you at all!!‘ when all ( I think) they mean is ‘Shit, You have got so fat! What do you eat for lunch, you moron!‘. I agree it’s been 10 years since we’ve met and even I couldn’t recognize some of them, but common, it hurts. And it doesn’t really help if her grandma comes mentions some stupid thing that you did a decade ago. And it really really doesn’t help when that girl says ‘Remember that poem you used to sing just to irritate me?!‘. And it really really really doesn’t help if your grandma says oh so proudly ‘Yeah, he still does that. He hasn’t changed at all‘. So much for a great Saturday, eh?
Yup! Age doesnt make a difference. . we do! we need to make life happy and add the zing in our own lives. . :D. . planning to start on my own soon! :D got bored of ‘no-change-in-my-life’ phase. . will jazz it up! :D
Blog about the change and it’s result. So that I can prove my theory. :)
1. Growth is not a function of age but of change.. Awesome concept. Loved it. :)
2. Lovely graph. But why do u ve a positive growth after death? I thought it would ve been better if the growth curve came crashing down at death. It will still retain ur ‘big-change-at-death concept’.
3. What was that poem you used to sing to that girl? By the sound of it, it seems like something that was not-your-age kind. :)
4. Finally, nice captivating title, I must say. :D
1) Thanks!
2) I think growth is one way. You keep growing as you experience more things. When you die, you grow rapidly because you have a life-changing experience. :)
3) I really can’t remember that poem. In fact, I don’t even remember singing a poem for her!
4) he he.
Ignored first line. Did imagine other things ;)
And yikes!! My next check point is “Family, Kids” ?!?
(stubs toe and chants Hanuman chalisa)
Ten years ago you must have been 13 (assuming my calculations are correct – that is) That is way past the age boys sing poems to girls with the sole purpose of irritating them. You must have had some other purpose ;)
And singing such poem to girls right in front of your grandma – not done :D
Dude, I don’t remember me singing any poem to her, let alone in front of my grandma.. Nannanna nambi. Please, please. ;)
Ok, You know I have a dirty mind and when I read the title I thought this is going to be some…ahem…you know what :D
. Let alone old age my life already stranded, pathetically monotonous. Hope this realization helps me try something new. Lets see :)