Monday 21 July 2008

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.

10 comments:

dipali said...

:) You still seem to pack in a helluva lot more in an average day than most people manage to do in a week, Kenny!

And energy levels do seem to go down as we grow older, more's the pity- I guess it has nothing to do with expending loads of it earlier:)

Choxbox said...

hmm. listen, how about a swap of the kids? you come and park here, the lil ones wll be happy (remember the last time?) and you can take my big one for a walk and you can ask her Qs, its way less exhausting than thinking up answers. will inform you of a longer term solution when it strikes me.

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

dipali-
:-)

when i was pregnant i used to find my husband telling people, "the strangest thing is her energy levels have gone down. she gets tired!" with such a note of surprise in his voice.

choxbox-
would love that. n3 would be the perfect companion for me. i would not ask her questions though. asking young people questions is what i seem to do for a living. :( :(

Choxbox said...

:))

Ludwig said...

Good people of Kennybunkport, Kenny speak with forked tongue.

This is the woman who rustled up dinner, yackety yacked 19 to the 12, polished off 2-3 Tiger beers, put monster to bed, and then somehow got up at some ungodly hour to go kickboxing in the rain.

Last week.

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

ludwig-
how on earth did so many beers disappear? this after our talk of cholesterol & LDL & HDL & due acknowledgement of our ages!! ah well.
In my defense, I did not make dinner. & Poor you had to walk from that wherever too. :-( :-(
anyway it was loads of fun as usual!!

PG said...

kpbm - i have good mind to ask your mom how you were when you were the same age. seems to me the li'l one has taken after her mom if i remember the stories u told us of urself at school.

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

pg-
heh heh. touche.
she looks NOTHING like me, whats up with that?? how will that look on judgement day?? huh?

Choxbox said...

oh kenny, i'll be right next to you on j.day - neither of mine look anything like me (or so i am told).

Rohini said...

Tell me about it. And if you've just started night-time potty training, you're tired even before you wake up!!!