The Anti-Thirty Stimulus Plan

So anyway, I was really pissed. And it’s not one of those moods brought on by Mondays, I don’t get that mood really. I mean, c’mon!!! Ok, maybe my job’s really beautiful and the net connection at work is ultra awesome, but still. Most people crib about Monday like it’s a colleague or the government. I mean they get really personal.


Okay so we are going off track. I was saying I was in a bad mood and all. The thing is this being five-years-away-from-thirty business (why don’t we oscillate between 18 and 28 nine times before dying, Oh GOD, where was thy imagination????) is really getting to me. I mean around the time of my (Happy) Birthday, I thought I’d get over it in a week or so. Just like the morning horoscope, I mean I take that very seriously too, in the loo I really think about it, but then I forget about it…

So if it says, “Today you will be very successful at work, find love and while you are at it you will also resolve family objection to your behaviour through delicate negotiation,” I really think about it.

Love eh? In Patna eh? Wonder how that will happen?? Then I construct a plausible real life situation. Hmm it is likely that Winona Ryder would take a flight to Patna, obviously we’d fall in love, and of course she’d want to marry… (Who wouldn’t??) All this popularity will get the folks to behave, also the company would HAVE to move me out of here (that being the definition of ‘very successful’ in my line), I mean there aren’t a lot of Hollywood movies being shot here currently, or shopping malls to steal from. My spouse has got to have a real career option and all; my company is very understanding that way.

Anyway. I really was pissed. I mean I was taking a close look in the mirror, and it began with a single strand. Then there were three more, and then a few more and this continued till I counted almost thirty fucking strands of completely white hair. (Aren’t they supposed to get grey first? Or is that just a saying, grey hair?) They really were white!!!

This just set the ball rolling, because then I looked at my waist which is at an all time high in terms of reach, my triceps have disappeared, my teeth were fairly white, but then two of the front ones are actually more than 70% artificial filling, so that doesn’t really count, I can be brutally honest with myself sometimes, loud ipod and chronic bacterial infection are causing steady loss of hearing, memory is weakening too, my nose is the size of the moon (okay that has nothing to do with being nearly thirty).

So anyway, this really made me angry. I mean what the hell; I was already thirty in many subtle ways. The damage had been done!!! And so I sat there, eating Choco Pie for breakfast and thinking about it, my life really needed a bailout package, just like everything else in the world.

I mean I do do a lot of things that are fairly cool, like I can make mashed potatoes that could compete with TGIF’s recipe, I have this blog, I get decent traffic, though 65% of it is me, albeit from two separate IP addresses, I have a dog, and well there are a lot of other things. But I need something else, something that is the very definition of cool, something that will turn me 18 again and cover me in the awesome glow of heavenly coolness.

And so I was thinking about this all day. And then it hit me.

Roadies, man!! I mean what could be more cool?? Have you seen those guys? It’s intimidating sometimes, the sheer intelligence of the women, the suave Sardar Ji, the sense of style that precedes the Bengali woman, and Dev’s (fat guy’s) obvious confidence. Taken together they define our generation, that’s who we want to be. That’s who we can be, if only we buy the merchandise. The utter brilliance with which they strategically plot against each other, the rip roaring humour, the passion with which they curse, the panache with which they stage romances, the diligence with which they often fail their moronic tasks.

Ok, so I have found my true calling, the time has come for me to take the road less traveled. So what if my friends will lose respect for me and then just drop me? So what if I will be laughed at on national TV? I stand to win almost eighty thousand rupees for only a few months of countrywide shame. And I could even be on Bigg Boss, Season 3 (Shilpa Returns, again)!! So what if I will have to say things into the camera in English and then translate the same into Hindi? So what if I don’t know how to ride a bike? Oh… Oh Shit…

Nach Baliye??