Growing up. Growing Old.

This post shall show evidence to the stated title with 3 examples.(My exams got over a month back. Why do i still sound like a textbook?)

I'll take this in the order in which these 3 events happen every day, or almost.

Driving lessons. My mother said "you're 21, high time you learn how to drive!". I had quite a fair argument, stating that it won't serve the purpose, because i do not have a car to practice on, and hence, shall promptly forget the finer details once the license with my ugliest photo ever, reaches my hand! As it turns out, i DID lose my case. And here i am, rising with the sun (or slightly later!), with eyes that burn, and refuse to open at the unearthly hour of the morning that i NEVER see during holidays! And i sit in a Santro, with a thatha who tells me all sorts of stories to get me to learn how to concentrate on the road when people in the car talk, honking more than i've honked in the entire 4 years of my bike-riding put together, hoping desperately for the longest 20 minutes of the day to fly away like they would if i were asleep! And somehow, it makes me feel very old to be learning how to drive!

Cooking. Realisation of some big mistakes i made when i was younger, and less wise! Since paati would make the best rasam, sambar, mor kuzhambu, vethal kuzhambu, and the likes, i decided to learn all the north indian stuff, and the pasta and the other simpler stuff, so that i could make all those when my mom wasn't around. Big mistake. It dawns upon one that sambar, rasam are the essentials, and that thus, one doesn't know how to cook at all! So one dips her right hand into the luke-warm water with pulli (tamarind) in it, and spends so much time squeezing the life out of it (because its fun!) and gets laughed at by amma and paati, the at-this-pace-you-wil-never-finish-cooking-on-time laugh! One's chappathis still resemble various maps of different countries, and one still feels like adding lots of salt to anything! but one believes that she will get there ;) Atleast, right in time before one gets married! But since one invariably has to rush for paatu class, no single dish has been mastered! I should really work on the timings! Only old people cook :(

The mornings are busy. The afternoons are lazy, that being the reason they're totally loved.Oh and there's another reason. There's the afternoon iced-tea ritual!aah. Sweet! The evenings though, are a blur! A blur of a million different combinations of colours of kancheepurams, and silk-cottons and banaras-silks and the endless other varieties of sarees. A wedding is no small affair, and what's any south-indian wedding without having to visit as many saree shops as possible, and buy as many sarees as possible, and make sure they're perfect, irrespective of who they're going to be given away to? My eyes are now unfotunately trained to distinguish the right combination of border+body, the pure/tested zari, the jataang (our slang for gaudy), and the not-so-jataang sarees/zaris/borders/pallus, judging which maami would prefer a jataang saree to a sober, elegant one, which colour is 'new' and 'young' as opposed to 'traditional' and 'paati-like', and many many other things, which has made my brother a little scared. He has pronounced me a typical 'maami', and i must say, seems quite terrified at the prospect of having to introduce me to people as his sister! What still challanges me, though, is distinguishing sarees by name. Saamundrika pattu, jodi pattu, vasthrakalaa pattu, amrithavarshini sarees, parampara pattu, kalakshetra sarees, subhamangala pattu, very very innovative don't you think? ;) Mind boggling! God, this does make me feel like a maami! OLD!

To top it off, the saree shop salesman asked my mother if i am her sister today. And sadly, i recognised it to be a genuine question, and not a trade trick! How much worse does it get? So much for chauffering her around, and indulging her very admirable habit of pulling almost every saree out of the rack and buying nothing at the end of 3 hours! ;)Mothers and sarees...they go together like the mad gleam in my eyes and football/capt.jack sparrow! For my part, i spent 5 minutes buying one saree, and 10 minutes buying the other, and extracted a "yen ma jarigai ivalov chinnadha irukku" dialogue from paati, which i must say, left me very smug! Very very proud of it!

So yeah, you realise that you're doing things that only old people do, and you don't feel good! You don't. Somehow, i'm still very happy :D

Yours " div the oldie, use your dentures" ly
Signing offf....