Our mental age is always one software update away from jumping from 16 to 32. All you need are a few thoughts or a substance that leads to those thoughts. But the body is dust, and its destiny lies in returning to that dust form. The preparation starts in your mid-30s and for me, it started a month ago. I saw a few white-coloured beard strands and knew my post-interval scenes had begun. It’s time to thicken the plot, achieve the goal, and wait for end credits. But personally, I’m still in the character establishment scenes — only the body can’t wait. It needs to die, so it starts dropping more signs.
I was worried about those two white beard strands for a week and lo, they spread like COVID and now occupy a pincode-sized area on my jaw trapezoid. I stopped thinking. The more I think, akhand white beard my face region gets. I forgot that and went back to being 25, where my mind is stuck — but the body keeps dropping more hints.
I’ve been playing sports all my life — never acing but always collecting participation certificates. In my 30s, I’ve been playing squash weekly, and a few weeks ago, I hurt my back — which is normal. You get hurt and get back, usually with a silent cool-off period of a week. This time, it took two weeks. I took note but was happy that I felt fine. I went back to court and now injured my knee, which took another week to heal and suddenly back pain made a comeback. Apparently, it never left and won’t divorce me either.
I tried sharing my physical pain with peers, which only gave me mental pain in return. Since I am the average of the five people I hang out with, I asked them if they had been doing anything about it.
No 1, who’s often in pain, wrote me a long list: multivitamins, immunity boosters, sleep extenders, and one more pill to control the damage from the rest of the pills. I took a few for a week and forgot — maybe forgetfulness is a side effect of those pills or just another sign of ageing.
No 2 turned 35 and nihilistic on the same day. He said, ‘I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either’. Two weeks later, he was in Care Hospital — not for irony deficiency, but for BP.
That made me go to Friend 3 — disciplined since he learned the word. He wakes up and runs daily. I tried joining him, but my pace slowed him down, which apparently aged him faster. You know how they say you can run but cannot hide — he ran away and hid from me so that I’m not seen running with him.
Friend 4 is happily married, doesn’t work out, but is quite healthy. He said, ‘You are what you eat, buddy. If you eat fresh, you stay fresh’. I tried. Beetroot juice, more palak, more water, less rice, lots of cucumber, and no bondas. I honestly tried. First time I realised I could feel sad while chewing food. I asked him, ‘How can you eat this daily?’ He said, ‘I’m married, I eat my words every day — beetroot is baklava for me’. No cap. I mean, he compliments those meals so.
Now Friend 5 is the wise guy. He said, ‘I hang out with each of them once a week and do a little bit of everything — it keeps me going’. Sounded nice, but he’s bald, so I didn’t listen to him and went back to counting white beards.
Sandesh
@msgfromsandesh
(This comedian is here to tell funny stories about Hyderabad)
(The writer’s views are his own)