Being Invincible

Those days are gone. Just vanished. Poof. Behind now, not coming back.

You know, the days when I could wake up at 5:30, go for a most grueling session of basketball, come back, shower, breakfast, pack bags, cycle to school, sing loudly in the assembly, attend classes, eat lunch, play kho-kho in the free class, dissect a rat in the practical session in the afternoon, cycle home, make a chart for the science exhibition, do my homework, eat dinner, polish NCC shoes and go to sleep with dreams of the morrow.

Also gone, the days when I could sleep at 1 am, wake up fresh at 7 am, brush, bathe, breakfast, go to the 8 am class, come back starving for the 11:40 lunch, eat, brush, chit-chat, wear the khaki and go to workshop, come back, eat bread pakoras (and digest them), go play basketball (not so grueling though), come back, shower, eat, go to audition for a play, chit-chat, drink miles of tea, park the bum in the corridor, cut out a crossword to take to the class tomorrow (hey!), put the clothes pile on the mat on to the bed, and lie down and go to sleep at 1am, dreaming about the dumb charades competition on the morrow.

Irreversibly behind me, micro-waved cinnamon-oatmeal (1 packet), shower, wear layers of clothes and sneakers, run to the bus, in by 7:30 am and working away for a fair bit by the time the rest of the gang showed up and clamored for coffee at 9:30, very sweet American coffee, lunch at 11:30, simulation jobs on every computer accessible to mankind, graphs, emails, more coffee (even sometimes half a donut), take the bus back home to a mish-mash of rice, dhal and veggies cooked in the rice cooker as Seinfeld plays in the back, desultory reading of papers, phone calls to New York, going to bed a little disturbed but confident that the light would appear tomorrow, and at any rate, a soccer game at 3 pm, must not forget the cleats.

Age has surely caught up with me as waking up at 6:30, milk, coffee, sandwich, PUTTING the dabbas in her bag, telling her the road is smooth because of the road-roller and the road-roller is smooth because we made it so, and also very heavy, and, no, they did not run the road-roller in those parts with pot-holes, but they will do it soon one hopes, and yes, it is true all this was a forest before human beings built such big buildings there, and surely it is best that we are happy with what we have and not keep on worrying about what we don't have (such as several arms similar to the branches on trees), and no, I just know the white birds are here but am not sure why they like to be near my office, and okay bye its good you want to walk in to the class alone and I will just stand here a little far way and wave, see you sweetheart at noon. And here at the desk on firefox and two emails later I am just tired.

Yes, my invincible years are behind me. Its not her fault. Children should question things. They are born scientists. Mothers should have known not to exhaust themselves in earlier lives.