How old are you?

That is one question that consistently elicits weird responses. I, like every narcissist, believe that I look younger (much, much younger) than I already am. That is, as far as the body is concerned. My mind however thinks rather differently. In fact, the whole set up is different.  I am, in there, an agile, ageless Adonis in an amaranthine state of being, wooed by the most desirable, no, by every woman that fits my fantasy.

My interest in science tells me that while this might be slightly abnormal, most of what goes on (in and outside of my mind) is nothing more than an occupational hazard of being a man. Like they say, juicy mangoes, succulent apples, tasty animals, magnificent sunrises, tsunamis, men. Nature is kinda quirky like that.

Also like they say, win some, lose some. Depends on what you are.

This still doesn’t tell you much about how old I really am other than providing you with vague references that I am indeed a man, as opposed to a boy. These days, that isn’t much of a clue either. What with 12 year old humans raping 9 year old girls, one can never say.

Moving on from that shocking bit of truth, perspicacity will tell you that you have absolutely no clue as to what the answer could be. (Those of who know me would be childishly tempted to reveal my age in the comments. You are welcome to do so, and I will understand that you are doing that in a desperate bid to feel young. My sympathies.)

I will, in my usual convoluted ways, try and provide you with a rather indirect answer. One of the favourite lines of my favourite cousin reads: ‘Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it’s the moments that take your breath away.’ This more or less is where my answer begins.

I am from a time when moments that took your breath away were not hard to come by, yet not so common as to lose their meaning. I come from a time when the sight of the now humble Maruti 800 on the roads made you turn around. I am from the time when you could long for a Maruti 800 and know that you had every chance of owning it. Not like the Ferraris we now collectively ogle at, knowing full well that we won’t ever be able to afford half of one – forget the whole.

I come from the time when love meant blushing at the prospect of holding hands, and fleeting, stolen landline conversations when parents weren’t at home. Unlike parading your love along with your dirty laundry on what was once a music channel that was the definition of cool.

My boyhood was when the word fuck caused gaping mouths, covered ears and even corporal punishments. In contrast to from when fuck became more of a punctuation and directly proportional factor of coolness.

My childhood afternoons were spent lazing around at home, waiting for evenings, which when arrived, were promptly spent hitting and chasing around balls in grounds, and generally ignoring homework. My childhood was when cartoon network only existed in our wild, collective imaginations and cartoons were manna, served every Sunday for an hour – a power cut notwithstanding.

I travelled in time from an era where computers were large as rooms, expensive as planes and as easily available as common sense. An era were cousins met with pomp and occasion, when chocolate bars were coveted surprise gifts, when dinners in restaurants were once a month affairs and when arriving to school in a car meant you were cock-a-snook-ingly rich.

I am also young enough to remember the early days of 56kbps internet when pictures of fair skinned girls in brief bikinis were hard to find and took ages to download and hide. I am from the time when internet at 128kbps took ones breath away. When a poke needed a finger and a body, a buzz needed a doorbell, ping was associated with pong, and birds were the only things that tweeted.

I hark back to the time when school lunches were had under the shade of neem trees, when friends never spoke to one another in English, and when mobile phones had a cumulative subscriber base of one, and that was James Bond.

Now, days pass in search of greys, days without megabit internet seem unimaginable, English is the de facto language, sex is a three letter word commoner than ‘and’, where age is no longer a birthday and casual clothes, and memory is something that is being lost every day.

What was the question again?

Welcome to the future.

This one is for you Rij! Happy Birthday in advance.