When the Building Came Alive

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Kasturi Dhama Apartments — the play area where many evenings came alive. The lights would go out without warning. For a brief second, the entire building would fall silent. Then, from somewhere in Kasturi Dhama Apartments, a chorus would erupt. “Yayyy!” It is difficult to imagine children celebrating a power failure today. But in the Bangalore of the nineties and early 2000s, a power cut did not always feel like an inconvenience. Especially in the late evenings, it felt like permission. Permission to stop whatever we were doing, leave the darkness inside our homes, and step into the building outside. Before Kasturi Dhama became home, we had moved through a few different parts of Bangalore. My family had begun in Srirampuram and Vyalikaval before gradually cementing ourselves in Malleswaram for the next few decades. My earliest memory is of living in a vatara —a Kannada word loosely used for a building or a cluster of homes—on 15th Cross, near Karur Vy...
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Turning 30

I was getting up, and slowly my email inbox was getting filled with the usual suspects.  These people never fail to email me on my birthday.  I had a few calls as well.  Again, these people never fail to call me on my birthday.  

So, how's the feeling?

Pretty much the usual, I replied back.

So, turning 30, haan? Everyone had to ask this, unfailingly and unflinchingly.

Yeah, I let out a couple of the usual, monotonous jokes.  It means, they don't deserve to be called jokes in the first place.

In the midst of all the jokes, I also tried to act all grown up (am sure I failed miserably at this).

I have to say that Afridi and I have a lot of things in common apart from a few obvious differences.  Firstly, he is supposed to be a totally hot cricketer, according to the girls.  OK, even the guys know it.  I leave it to my friends to judge whether this is a similarity or a difference.  They know it.  I know it, too.

Secondly, Afridi has this amazing quality. At the age of 16, in the year 1996, he made his debut in international cricket.  Now, after fifteen years, if somebody questions his age, nobody gets surprised when he says he is 17. All the economists, I am sure, are cracking their heads at this weird case of the laws of diminishing returns.  For a change, I have never seen this concept in a better light.

If Afridi is 17, I am like ten.  But, maybe, mentally, he is still 17.  That's where we have our similarity.  I still seem to have not grown beyond the general adolescence associated with youth, cracking those pjs that don't seem to invoke a laugh out of anyone or passing those baseless and insane comments.  It may not be as outrageous as like Afridi saying that beyond the cricketing gear of front pads and thigh pads, he could see Tendulkar tremble when he faced his bowlers.  I mean obviously, at the age of 17, he has the vision of a hawk.

Sometimes, when I play tennis and as I get that seething back pain near the spine, my colleagues are quick to point out to me that this is a sign of the age.  I laugh it off and remind them that for a sportsman like me, who plays virtually every single game on the planet, that this is very very common.  <Modesty, modesty.  Control, control!>

Haha, I used to think like that.  You will soon know.  They retort and add the word experience to support their claims.

I watched Zindagi na milegi dobaara last week.  It was a coincidental watch (a Hindi movie after a long long time), and the songs are on a repeat mode in my Spotify playlist.  Nothing else can be more apt than the lyrics of Der Lagi (http://open.spotify.com/track/1cx0WexY9mFmD9bi6sw0AH).

So, what is it like being 30? I ask myself.

I don't know.  Maybe, I should start eating less number of bhel puri plates and masala dosais outside.  You know, the point where I need to take care of my health.  Cholesterol, fat control and what not!

Spirituality? Yeah, maybe I should start following Nityananda.

Mature talk? Yeah, I can do a world of good for people around me with a little bit of extra maturity.

Responsible partner? Yeah, that seems easy.  My wife can take care of the responsibility part.

I think there is still some time for all these things.  Let me just get a plate of Bisibele bath, and let me continue the weekly tussle in tennis with the folks here.

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