What’s in an Age?

Let us just cancel 2020 from our calendars…we will not add it to our age, one year that everything happened, and nothing did.

But age has always been more than just a number, hasn’t it? More of a milestone for some, a burden for others. I, for one, have never really given it much of a thought. I just look forward to birthdays and wish they would come more than once a year! But recently, my five grey strands are no longer shy and have been making more than special appearances. And that got me thinking, am I getting old?

“Baba, I cannot believe you went and played. After promising last year, you still went. You said you will only watch. No, but you played all the matches. You are not in school or college anymore. If you break a bone or pull a muscle, then what are we going to do? Do you know how long it’s going to take to heal? Anyway, nobody ever listens to me, but I am supposed to listen to you people. Doctor banaya hi kyun if you never plan to listen to me. I am not talking to you any more…”

Just a glimpse into the numerous “conversations” I have had with my dad when he would come back after playing a football match. While the sentences change their order, the gist remains the same. If, for a change, we do manage to force him not to play a company match or go run a marathon, using every possible scientific and emotional argument, that will be the day he will sulk. He will hardly talk, watch news, be as unanimated as a child who has been asked to finish his homework instead of going out to play. 

While he has been at home during this lockdown, he sent me a photograph one day that triggered an exponential reaction to this. Him doing a shirshasan!!! Within a matter of 15 seconds, I had sent possibly 30 messages. When I called in the evening, I told my mother, “Please don’t give the phone to him, I do not wish to speak to him. He doesn’t know where to stop or act his own age! I will not say anything else, let him do what he wants!” 

Of course, all these end before we go to bed with my father having pacified me with promises of him being careful and not doing it again.

And as I lie down on my bed, I think whether it is right on my part to stop him at all? Should I not be happy that he did this, that he won a match, that he managed to perform a headstand? What if he had done it at 35 instead of 53? Would I have reacted in the same way?

It was the summer of 2009. My mother and I got onto the lift, along with a kid from our building and his mother. He had circular glasses slipping down his nose. “It is my birthday tomorrow,” he announced to me. “Oh, how nice! A very happy birthday to you! How old will you be?” “Nine and a half,” he said, proudly! “What? I think you mean 9,” I laughed. “No, last year I was eight and a half, so this year, I am going to be nine and a half!”

Smart boy, I didn’t really have an answer to that and just nodded my head in agreement. Till today, my mother and I call him ‘Nine and a half’, we really don’t remember his name!

“Wait, I will take it out myself,” she said, as she expertly slipped out her prosthetic eye so that I could examine the socket. “Do you take it out and put it back yourself?” I asked as a cleaned her eye gently. “Yes, I do,” she said as I quickly glanced at the mother, sitting on the one side of the clinic room and she smiled and nodded in agreement. She was seven years old, had retinoblastoma in both eyes, the most common eye cancer in children, diagnosed as a baby, had received chemotherapy, laser treatment to the tumour, multiple sessions of examination under anaesthesia. One eye had to be enucleated or removed while for the other she had to come for regular check-up to make sure that it was completely regressed. She let me examine her retina, looking wherever I asked her to, without complaining about the bright light that I was flashing in her eye, scanning till the periphery for any sign of recurrence. “Do you wear your glasses at school?” I asked, as I was drawing the diagram of her retina. “Yes, and during my dance classes, and when I go to play, because it is important to protect my other eye,” she replied. When she left the room, having replaced her prosthetic eye herself, she just left me amazed. When 27, 47 and 67 year old patients leave you struggling and exhausted with their non-compliance to simple instructions and non-cooperation during examination, these kids not only brighten up your day with their understanding and maturity but also restore hope that all that you explain is not always lost!

12 years BC (read Before Corona)-

“Two tickets for ‘Life in a Metro’ please, the 12.45pm show.”

“Sure ma’am, can you please show me the age proof of your daughter?” said the lady behind the counter.

“Why?” my mother pretended to be surprised, while all along we had expected this question and had decided to just act nonchalant. I had even worn my high heels and carried a purse.

“This movie has an ‘A’ certificate, we have to check.”

“Oh, well, she is going to turn 18 in 6 months now,” as I stared incredulously at my mother! Really? That is your ‘We’ll go confidently and get the tickets, let me talk, you stand behind me mode'?

And that is the story of how we ended up watching ‘Mr Bean’s Holiday’…

8 years BC-

It was my first trip abroad! Having soaked in the beauty of Langkawi, my dad and I had reached Genting. We had done the rides during the day, clicked pictures at the models of Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and the Canals of Venice and visited Ripley’s. 

“Let’s try, na,” said Dad. 

“You know they won’t let me go, you go inside, I will wait here,” I said.

“If they don’t let you in, then even I am not going, but let’s take a chance,” he urged.

“How old is she?” The security guy at the entrance of the casino asked the most obvious question.

“She is 17, her birthday is next month. She will not play, she just wants to see.”

“You know I cannot allow that,” he smiled as he looked at my passport.

“I assure you, she will not play. Let her just go in and take a look. I give you my word.”

“Well, you will be 18 in a few days…alright, as long as you keep that promise. Go on kid!” he grinned.

Being asked my age and which class I study in, have never been surprising questions for me. While initially it would irk me and I would reply sternly, I started enjoying later. The look of astonishment, jaw-drops and fumbled apologies became quite fun as I would tell them I have finished school and am doing MBBS, or I have become a qualified doctor. Even patients sometimes find it hard to trust junior doctors and I don’t blame them. Most of the times even we do not generate much confidence in them, but at times it’s quite amusing to see them being taken aback when you tell them your age and that you are also a doctor!

Movie halls, autos, patients and building aunties have become routines and I am quite used to it…or so I thought!

Corona Times, year 2020-

After a case presentation on zoom, our Sir had ordered some food for us. He had asked me to take it from the delivery guy outside. I could not find anybody at the hospital gate so I came back. “Hasn’t he delivered?”

“No, there was nobody,” I said.

“But he called me that he had reached…wait let me call him back,” he said.

“Alright, I will just go outside and check,” I said and went out.

The delivery boy was there this time and he was on the phone with my boss, I supposed. As he handed over the packet to me, I heard him say, “Yes Sir, ek bacchi aayi thi lene, maine de diya!”

I stopped dead on the track and spun around…the words still sinking in and before I could think of a rebuttal, he had left!

Whether you add 2020 to your age or not, smoothen out your wrinkles with multiple injections, wear your mother’s heels and lipstick, or dye those silver strands, your age comes out no matter what you do because none of these truly reflect how young or old you are. So, I shall flaunt my greys proudly, maybe they will make me look older…or I may go one day and get them dyed purple! 

MS