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Sijin, seeing me sitting alone in the food court at 2 o clock in night, sat down beside me with a cup of coffee. I was actually looking for some lonely time with myself. I was down and desp for two reasons. First reason was that its 2am on valentine's day and I am yet to find a valentine. Second reason, which was the worst one, was that the only person who wished me "Happy Valentine's day" till then was Chakky ( For ignorant ones, the sweet name 'chakky' does not belong to any gal. Its the pet name of Lijoe and Lijoe is a guy in my team. You heard me right, a guy .. A GUY !!! ) . So there I was, sitting in a corner of food court, lifting and dipping the tea bag into the cup. I choose Food court to clear my worries , coz it would always be brimming with positive energy. Somebody playing TT , or a gang of friends chit-chatting. Strangely , this night was different. It was all empty and perfectly silent and calm, that is until Sijin came.
Sijin, btw is a colleague of mine, married to a college friend of mine. She stays close to the office with her hubby and kid. We know each other for over 4 years now.Even though, we would always be in war with each other in official matters, she is a great friend in person and a great person as friend. She gives a lot of advices and also has agreed to help me get a valentine. As she sat beside me, I felt at ease. She would give me some pep talk , when I share my worries. But before I could start pouring my heart out she started, "In our floor, everybody is busy on their phone. Uh, afterall its valentine's day.You know Sojish, it was like hell let loose when clock hit 12. There was non-stop buzzing and beeps all around me. And everyone started punching the keypads of mobile phone. Aargh !!!! "
Well Sijin, and for that matter all married ladies, would be feeling jealous. After marriage, you cant expect a lot of messages. They can only pray that their hubby atleast remembers the day. As I was comprehending the reason behind her frustration, Sijin threw a question at me.
"Hmm , you also might have got quite a few messages , eh ?".
That question was totally uncalled for . Atleast , not when I'm already doomed and desp. I was fully aware that no message has come till then, still I didn't want to accept the disgrace fast enough. Also, the optimist inside me asked, "What if I did get a message which leaked in and I was not aware". So before answering her, I pulled out the mobile in a slow dramatic action and checked the messages.
"Nope. Didn't get any !!"
She gave a cheeky smile. To my dismay, Sijin did not look surprised at all. It was as if thats the most natural thing to happen. That's not fair !! Before I could come out with a plausible explanation for the lack of messages, she continued
"You know what, Sojish. You should know that you are old , when your mobile does not buzz at 12 on a Valentine's day."
I got up fast from the seat and left food court to the solace of my cubicle. But her words had already done the damage. "You should know that you are old , when your mobile don't buzz at 12 on Valentine's day." Am I old , bcoz none of my stupid friends send me a stupid message on a stupid night? That is Soooo-Not-True. I remember teasing my bosses when they turned 30 years old. Oh boy , didn't I have fun ? They were on the wrong side of 30 while I was still in mid twenties. I felt like a kid having fun, watching oldies fall into some kind of a mud puddle. But as each year passed and more and more of my friends started jumping off the 30-year cliff, I kind of understood that my time is running out too. Every celebrations, be it Christmas or New Year is also a reminder that earth is turning, and I can't stop the time from ticking. I wished I could turn into a superman and stop earth from turning, or atleast remove the glass cover of wrist watch and pour some feviquick on the needles, if that will stop time from running out.
Lately, I've been watching the DVDs of American sitcom, FRIENDS. Its totally hilarious and watching this series results in serious addiction. (As per Visakh, its also causes obesity) The other day, I was watching the serial with Tobby, my friend. We were laughing our heart out watching,"The one where they all turn 30"
Few minutes through it , its slowly dawned on both of us that we are in the same state as of Joey. I felt slightly at ease as I still got more than 150 days. Tobby definitely has reasons to cry like Joey. Even his wisdom teeth is not in its place, and look at what happened to the poor guy. He is already off the cliff. I can already see Tobby crying , "Why God?!! Why?!! We had a deal!! Let the others grow old! Not me!!"
Personally, its not the worry about looking old and having to dye grey hair. I always wanted some grey and white hair ( pssh, I envy Richard Gere for his silver streaked hair style). Unfortunately, the tap water from kochin corporation would never let me have white streaks. Forget white streaks, I doubt if I'll ever have any hair left on head.
The whole paranoia behind turning 30, is the realization that I'm running out of time. My todo list have a lot of entries still left undone and I'm not sure of nailing any of them in the few months I'm left with in twenties. I'm training myself to do multi-tasking, something which I was pathetic in, ever since I understood the meaning of the word "multi-tasking". (As a part of training, I'm listening to FM radio while I write this ). To complete the todos before I fall off the twenties, I surely need all the sleeping skills.
Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~ Jack Benny Note added during publishing : As I was posting this article, the song playing in the FM station changed to the beautiful song from malayalam movie Gazal, "Iniyumundoru janmamenkil". Why ?? Why God?!! WHY?!!
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Atleast I wished you and a lot of people too 
just so
