25* not out….

Probably this is one of the many posts on internet on Quarter life crisis but I give a damn, I need to write one on this. I always felt quarter life crisis was little over rated until my recent (read it 4 months back) visit to Bangalore for my UG friends reunion.

This phase of life is really a bad part, you are caught in between two worlds. You can’t accept the fact that you are growing old and at the same time you can’t be a part of the younger generation too. You feel that the 90’s, so-called Gen Z’s, way of thinking is too amateurish to accept nor the way your elders expect you to be is totally unrealistic. Whatever was cool during our golden days are not cool anymore. Definition of boozing has changed from throwing out to getting hurt after being drunk, definition of dating has changed from awesome dinners to awesome breakfasts, definition of bunking classes has changed from proxies to changing the faculty and lot more thought process changes happened in just three years. You suddenly become the oldie and matured guy where people can’t believe you could have been the crazy guy once upon a time. But back home still you are the good for nothing lazy laid back guy who doesn’t know what to do with life!

You don’t want to do a 9 to 5 job so you go back to a B-school only to realize you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. You don’t want to be in a serious relationship so soon only to realize the entire meaning of relationship has changed these days.

Once you turn 25, things change:

• All elders around you start expecting that you have a perfect career planned out.
• Your parents start joking about your marriage  when you still haven’t shaved since your last breakup!
• You realize that your drinking capacity has reduced but you blame it on “i-don’t-like-acting-stupid-getting-drunk”.
• You can suddenly feel that there are no single girls around. If there are, they see you like uncles and bhaiya or rakhi bahiyas.
• You never understand why you wanted to do whatever you are doing now.
• You realize that rather than knowing what you want to do you will know what you don’t want to do.
• You feel that people around you are having a ball either by changing jobs for a better pay or updating FB albums and relationship status after getting engaged or married.
• You talk only about girls from your college who got married or committed with some “palak” types guy.
• You long for your wonderful past or crib about your future in all your beer sessions!
• You start covering your scalp which says “Hi” due to hair fall or you count the number of gray hairs which you wish didn’t exist.
• All your ex girl friends have a new guy or has got married to a guy who is rich and living abroad.
• Though you pretend not to worry about your package, at the bottom of your heart you feel you are worth more!
• Small kids in the neighborhood start calling you “Uncle get the ball please!”
• You don’t want yourself to be called orthodox or traditional but you are not open and you have your own idea of preserving culture and all that comes along with it.
• You have all the advice on relationship yet you know you will end up with arranged marriage!
• The number of Facebook updates you do is inversely proportional to the time you spend on Facebook.

I don’t know why I am writing in bullets. Probably that’s the after effect of lot of PPT.

Whatever be it, this phase of life too will have a lot of stories to tell!