(Written en route Pune to Ranchi on 21/05/2011, so all little stories refer to incidents within train)
Faces can mislead. Emotions, thoughts, character – face is a great revealing entity. And yes, age. But due to some unknown quasi-cosmic reason, my face stopped ageing a decade ago.
Any girl on any given day will be ready to run up and down the Vaishnodevi shrine five times to stop her face showing signs of ageing. But ask any boy – er – man. The sole reason for the existence of male species on this earth is that, well, he has to be a man. When a male is not able to get himself branded as man despite being a man, the awkwardness he faces is unique to me. I haven’t met anyone who is asked of the class in which he studies even seven years after last attending the school.
Asked by a family once travelling with me in train, when I told that I study in class 12, the man replied, “You look too young to be in class 12, doesn’t he look like Pitto who goes to school with our Chooti?” His wife nodded with the biggest possible grin and gave a little pat on Chooti’s head. Chooti who seemed to be in class eight or nine smiled at me shyly and the depth of drooling in her eyes suggested that either she had a major crush on Pitto, or a face like Pitto with more manly credentials had really excited her. I gave a hint of smiling back.
This is the problem. For Chooti and her family, its a perfectly normal reaction. But for me, I am not even in class 12, I have been in job for more than two years now and Chooti is just a little girl for me.
I have been unfortunate enough to study in IIT and now to work for the government of India. Both places are devoid of female species of every possible kind. I really don’t know the intricacies of talking to a girl. I have no idea of how to stand, sit, look, breathe, hear, and think – in the presence of opposite sex of similar age. So, I have developed my own ways to face the challenge. Some of them are -
i) Get ignored by them, this is the easiest. Thank God that most girls ignore me.
ii) Try to spend as little time as humanely possible in presence of girls of same age.
iii) Talk as if your every sentence is costing a month of your salary and try to keep the sentence to really rudimentary form.
i) Get ignored by them, this is the easiest. Thank God that most girls ignore me.
ii) Try to spend as little time as humanely possible in presence of girls of same age.
iii) Talk as if your every sentence is costing a month of your salary and try to keep the sentence to really rudimentary form.
To the top of this, when girl-kids, half my age, simply make all excuses to talk to me, I feel like hanging myself. When everyone else is asleep in afternoon, this Bengali girl asks me, “Tumne khana nahi khaya?” She shows such a feeling of care that I curse myself. I don’t know what to do. I know most boys will hate this, but I will be mighty happy if some day these girls start calling me ‘bhaiya’. Now this girl is offering me Britannia cake. My God!
This mismatch of actual age and the perceived age is already taking toll on my working life. I naturally don’t fit in as an officer of many employees. People find it hard to see me as their future boss.
I have a history of young girls developing ‘very soft’ feelings towards me. Fortunately, the feeling is not mutual. I really hope that some day a twenty something girl will also develop similar feelings for me. I will wait the whole time while I am also in my twenty something. Or else, I will write another blog in my forties on same issues. ;)
