Adulting is HARD

DAMN this post is like half a year late.

Here goes - 

 Looks like the @30 tag remained sad and lonely - I didn't post as much as I had hoped to. I was otherwise occupied :D

Anyway, Yet another birthday has come and gone, and boy who knew growing old came with its own bag of depression candy?

I am currently reaching whale - like proportions in weight, much to the shame of my mother, who cannot believe that I am indiscriminately shoving whatever comes right up my pie-hole.

I am experiencing pain like I never have - I did not know knees and back could hurt for days on end, and that you would become immune to your body crying for the sweet sweet release of death, and the pain becomes a constant for weeks, nay months, and one day suddenly peaks, and then you realize this pain is now part of who you are, just the way your name was always yours ever since you were given it. You stop noticing it is even there, and why, life goes on!

I guess that's what this post is going to be about. About being an adult. About the inevitability of time.

About how I walked all the way from my house to the Nagavarpalya bus stop in search of newspapers on a fine summer morning, when I had about a million things at work pending.

About how I gave up walking back and shamefully booked an auto and sat it in, groaning with the pleasure of being able to rest my tired feet.

About chores and responsibilities and how utterly useless it is to resist the call of nostalgia.

So dear Reader, I know this post is about two whole months late, but this incident occurred not so long ago - 

It was a bright morning, winter being a thing of the past. (February. It was mid February in Bangalore. Sigh). I was tasked with the responsibility of renewing my mother's passport. We had gone together to get our first one done a decade ago, and now it was expiring. I had done mine earlier anticipating an overseas trip. My mother wasn't a huge fan of this idea - of renewing her passport. 

"I'm old. Where will I travel? Let it be."

My father and I began telling her about how her address had now changed, and it was always better to have more ID proofs. And who knew? Maybe she might end up going abroad on a trip after all!

Well, I apparently didn't know what was I signing up for. We started the process. Previous documents were asked. We spent about a day searching for them. (Now one might blame me for not organizing things from the start correctly - thanks Dad, but did you really expect the DragonRider to give up her messy ways? NO! Actually yes, but more on that later)

I immediately noticed that the name she'd used on all her documents was different from the name on the passport. How had this happened? That is an extremely long and boring story that I shall spare you the details of. However, this change however slight, wouldn't go unnoticed amongst a set of people whose job it was to catch you for something that didn't seem right. Would she listen? OF COURSE NOT. "Those people were ok with it before and I'm sure they'll be ok with it now"

So there we were, at the passport office. My mother is now a senior citizen. She did not know the powers she possessed. I had to drag her away from the long snaky line that had formed and stand in front of the guard who ushered us in immediately. In all the other kiosks it was just a matter of pushing her from one place to another and she ended up getting most of her documentation done. 

Until the last one. The same PSK which had approved her passport with the full name previously, now decided it wanted the address proof to have the exact same name. A lot of back and forth ensued. Eventually it was determined that my mother did have to get her name changed.

Luckily we didn't have to do much there, I could sit in the comfort of my house, get the advertisement edited, and pay the money while waiting for the ad.

The day of the arrival of the newspaper with the name change came. I decided - oh it's just a newspaper, I can simply go to the main road, grab a few!

How wrong was I?? Very. 

So Bangalore, in general , wakes up quite late. Even on a weekday. I set off early (7 am. This is early. I rest my case) and made my way to the regular haunts. Not one of them was open. I asked around and they looked at me sadly and told me to get back at 10 or 11 am. It was a working day. A working day implies I have other WORK to do. So that was unacceptable.

I began walking. Now walking in itself wasn't a big deal. Everyone walks. I used to love walking. 

I was however, quite out of shape. I was huffing and puffing by the time I cleared a kilometer in search of that elusive early morning person who was selling newspapers in this day and age. It was starting to get warmer and I found no-one. I knew of a market close by where I would atleast find people. It was another km away. Overconfident in my ability I decided to walk the rest of the way. 

I eventually got there and found folks selling newspapers. And all the newspaper vendors here relied upon their regular customers for sales. They flat out refused to sell me two copies of the same paper. (I also wanted extras, because you never know).  So now it became a pilgrimage , looking for a paper at each vendor , and looking an insane person , while holding my growing bunch.

In my walk I covered about another km and a half. And then while coming back, I unashamedly hailed an auto rickshaw and got back home - I , the DragonRider who once would have covered this distance back without a thought, decided taking transport back was the way to go. Of all the things that makes one realize that one is older now, I think the failing of one's own body hits the hardest. 

On that interesting note, see your around soon, 

DragonRider