around in the street with a
discarded bicycle tire.
The only aspiration was to
get a sturdier tire of motorcycle
to flex a smooth ride.
By ten, I gathered boys
of my street to build a cricket
team to challenge the teams
from other streets.
The only aspiration was to
somehow win a rupee that
would be at stake.
By fifteen, I was in a
residential school.
I was head of the Blue House.
I played table tennis and
the only thing I looked forward
to was to go to regionals,
if not nationals.
By twenty, I had no baggage.
high on hormones, stuck in
college. The teenage angst
should have upped my game,
but it was dumbed down by
philosophy I read that
preached idealism.
By twenty-five, I had fallen
into the vicious cycle of cracking
government exams.
The shit hit the fan shortly.
The erstwhile aspirations got
subsided into a financial fatigue-
But fortunately, by thirty,
I got lucky. My concerns were
dealt with. I could focus on
writing and a bit of travel.
I could stretch myself beyond
my usual boundaries to
some extent-
The existentialism I faced,
catharsized into absurdism,
I learnt laughing at everything
till it became a habit.
I am thirty-three now,
I wish I weren't thirty five in
the next two years and
If only I could manage to
not behave like forty year old
to plan for my sixties-
I can still look in the eyes
of the teenager I was to
to hold on to something
that I haven't yet lost.