Memory. Relevance. Reinvention.

.As children from the pre-internet era, we would invent a lot of games to fill our long evenings.

?One such game was called “Memory”.

?In this, the first person in the group would say a word – (Say “India”). The second one needed to say the original word + a new one (So, it would be “India”, “China”). The 3rd guy would then have to say the first two words and add a third one (“India”, China”, Japan”) …And so on.

?Depending on who missed out a word first (either a word itself or the sequence), the participants would get eliminated one by one from the game.

?The winner used to be the person who could hold on to the maximum number of names in their correct sequence, and for the longest duration.

?As I grow older, I find myself reflecting more and more on my changing faculties. Every year, each of us becomes a different person when compared to the year before, with revised degrees of drive, spirit, beliefs, and triggers.

?We all peak in some particular aspects at specific corners of life. Every age has a lesson for us, and every year modifies us a little bit with its events and the emotional housekeeping that these events do on us. I would say that about 15% of these changes are somewhat permanent and ‘stick’ to the “residual” personality of ours for good. However, it’s unfortunate that we often trade most of our yesterdays for our todays, and most of our todays for our tomorrows.

As we grow into the skin of today, we automatically assume that it is essential to shed the skin of yesterday.

This July, I added one more year to my life. Having slowed down a little bit in recent years, I obviously (& subconsciously) try to constantly measure the perceptible changes in myself during the past one year since my previous birthday. It goes without saying that there are many – physical, psychological, and also spiritual, even when the externals seem to have barely altered. I can sense my body a little older than before, with some new limits added to old limitations. My knees are significantly weaker than last year (and I have had to consciously give up running). Though I have reading glasses for four years now, I have started using them seriously only in the past year or so.? My mind too is undergoing its own aging process - sometimes exerting its elderly strictures on the playful heart, and at other times swaying to the odd note of the now-buried youngster from a distant past. I no longer possess the razor-sharp memory of my youth and I need to write down telephone numbers (sometimes, even names). Some of my contemporaries have been placed under medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and other lifestyle ailments. And then there are others who have already departed for their next planes of existence.

Yes friends – no matter how much we play it down with humor , growing older is not sexy. It is like crossing over to the second half of a wonderful book or entering a dark cinema after the intermission – where you realize that the good parts are already over and hereafter it is just a reluctant trot till you reach the back cover or till the credits roll up. It is a deeply unsettling thought that your yesterdays now outnumber your tomorrows and so many innocent dreams shall never see the light of the day in this lifetime. At twenty, the whole world stretches out like an enormous ocean in front of you and you have infinite combinations of choices to hoist your sails and set off for new lands and new adventures. The universe bows to your youth and to its whims. Life is a never-ending realm of possibilities in front of you.

Bit by bit as you grow older, you start letting go of these possibilities – sometimes by design, sometimes by default. One after the other, you start shedding your dreams and making peace with each departure as you head into the next leg of the journey, each day a little narrower than the one before. One by one you start saying goodbyes – to people and to places, getting a little lonelier with each passing year. And the worst part is that you often fail to realize this transition till you are midway through because all this happens when you are too caught up in your theatre, donning masks and playing roles. Then one fine day you realize that you are forty-something and suddenly cornered by life. No matter how much you blame it for being unfair, life shall annoyingly prove to you that it was otherwise, and it was YOU who missed those bends while gazing at a rainbow over Neverland. Suddenly you realize that there are very few takers for you in this new world – YOU, who used to be the coolest superhero you ever knew! You might not want to believe it, but you are now among the elderly lot – comical people who walk slow, who speak slow, who eat slow, who think slow and who often tell the same stale jokes again and again, thinking that they are still funny.

At twenty, you were a challenger to the Gods. By the time you wrap your 40s, staying respectfully human remains your only humble challenge.

But most of all, what will haunt you and take away your sleep is your resignation to nature. Nothing can be more heart-breaking than the moment when you shake hands with the stranger that you have become, a mediocre and also-ran individual whose aspirations had sadly overshot his capabilities and his destiny. Deep within, each of us wanted to be someone great when we started off. The saddest day of life is when we re-caliber the greatness scale and readjust our limits. That is the day when we say goodbye to our most innocent selves and start our countdown to the end. And no matter how pessimistic I sound as I say this, it happens to everyone. Life mostly burns out and time often runs out when we are still not ready for it. And harsh though it might sound, not everyone weaves & leaves a legacy of a Gandhi or a Mother Teresa. As I grow older and accept the limitations of my life, I also try to list down things that I could still do within my reach (simplifying it with each passing year) , and that could leave me with the solace at the end of my days that I did not surrender my greatness to my fate or to my abilities. I tried, in my own little way.

?Hence, one misty morning in 2020 when we were all locked inside our homes due to the onslaught of a new pandemic that was about to ground us for the next thirty months, I thought of compiling some of my journal entries into a book. To my surprise, people from all over the world gave it a lot of love. And before I knew it, I came up with a second book the very next year. Then, a third, a year after. Nothing fancy – just scribbles of an Everyman trying to do life and leave a toolkit behind for other Everymen & Everywomen like himself.

?Something like that ‘Memory’ game from my childhood.

?An attempt to chronicle cumulative life-bytes from the years going by & creating a user’s manual for the next generation.

?A common theme in conversations I have been having lately with my friends ( folks on the wrong side of 40s or who’ve just hit that 50-mark), is an increased focus on lifespan and the quality of life that awaits us. Funnily, most people are worried about their healthspan and relevance than the mere length of life. Relevance, of course tends to be tricky – and fleeting. At the mercy of other people & external validation. Unless you’re among a select few, life won’t reinvent itself for you every few years. So if you continue being the same ‘you’ that you used to be five years ago, you’re headed downhill.

?This year has been a break year for me where I am stepping back into myself to reassess my journey this far. A feedback I often receive is that - people who knew me in school may not have recognized me in college. Those who were with me in my 20s, probably were surprised to see me in my 30s. And then, if we met when I was in my 30s, they may not have connected that person who I was to who I became in my 40s. Obviously, I understand that I am not in that select bracket for whom life will play the musician every other day, but I am one of the majority who need to get up & make life dance. Every day! By reinventing ourselves. And frustrating the hell out of the person who stares back at us from the bathroom mirror, in search of familiarity ??!

?When nobody picks you up, pick yourself up. And redo yourself. Then, document each makeover. Each self will eventually add up into the you that you’ll sign off as, good to save the changes before you turn the engines off !

But in spite of the above, one thing that pleases me is that while I have succeeded in shedding my skins of earlier decades, I have retained the rusty keys to all those doors that have closed behind me, just in case some day I wish to silently open one of them & walk in without knocking, just to check where all did I go !

?Wouldn’t you too like to take a walk into the passing years and reconnect with the “You”s whom you are leaving behind while becoming the resultant ‘you’ of today ? Would it not be awesome if we could manage to hold on to the playfulness we had at three , the curiosity we had at seven , the optimism we had at twelve, the aspirations we had at nineteen, the capacity to love without expectations like we had at twenty one, the aggression to win fair & square like we had at twenty five…and most of all, the ignorant faith to entrust ourselves to the care of someone larger than us without any self –doubt , like we had as new-borns ?

?If you said yes, then hop in. Let’s do this together.

?I thank you for being with me through my journey this far. Do share your journeys with me too so that I may learn from them and write about them.

This is just the intermission. Lot of doors that remain to be closed & new ones to be opened as we go ahead!