On the wrong side of 25.. :)

I celebrated my 25th birthday recently.

Its one of the rare occasions when your male friends are allowed to hug you, unless you are Italian of course.

"So now that 25 years old, what are your plans?"

You don't realize you are 25 till you hear it from someone. It's quite a number. 25 weeks at the

box office earns you a silver Jubilee tag. 25 years with one spouse means you have really high levels of tolerance. You have to be 25 before you can become the PM of India (oh yeah)...

All in all, it's a good number... only till they ask you what you wanna do with your life...

I have never been able to answer that question properly. When I was asked that question as a kid by my relatives when visiting them in the summer, the answer was easy. I would say I wanted to be an investment banker - one of the advantages of having a banker mother. Then the next question would be, why don't you want to be a commercial artist like your father?

Never did I have an answer. I wonder if I ever wanted to be a doctor... I never wanted to be a Pilot, or a Police officer or Giant Robot (like some friends in my colony) or Michael Jackson (like my cousin). I just didnt wanna be anything...

I didn't know what I was good at. I was good at maths and science, but so were 4 others in the class. I was not extremely good at cricket, so being the next Sachin Tendulkar was out... I never wanted to be an actor like SRK. I wonder if any guy wants to be SRK or should want to be SRK.

The point here is, I never really knew what i wanted to do with my life. I am less confused than I was when I was 22. When I was 22, I tried out everything. I applied to FTII's direction course,

lectured students, worked for Rolls-Royce plc Bangalore, got into Eaton, Pune.... I thought this would help me sort things out... It doesn't work that way...

Anyway, in a bid to feel good about myself, I tried to see what good things have happened to me in the last one year... what have I learnt... have I become wiser than what I already was! :P

* I would be getting my novel Published. To be honest, I don't feel to excited about getting it published. All my friends around me are extremely happy. I was wondering why I cant feel the same happiness... Then I thought about my blog, the best feeling is when I get comments on the blog & i comment on others...

This is what I am waiting for - reviews of the book... Once they trickle in, I would be happy...

hopefully once it is published obviously :)

* I made awesome friends in Rolls-Royce and Air India. I realized that I have really cool friends in general. I fail to understand why do they like me so much. Sometimes

I wonder if I have been a good friend to them.

* I finally would want a chance to go to Germany. I have wanted to go there ever since I saw that ad about German Engineering (Opel ad).

* I have fallen in love with Europe. dont know if that stands for all of Germany, but Berlin in Summers is beautiful i hear. God is a male. And he made summers in Berlin for his recreation. You have to go there to know what I am talking about.

(Now that I would be an author, I have decided not to post raunchy photos... only clean ones like the one below)

* 'Genau' and 'alles klar' have to be my favorite words in the German language. Genau means Exactly and alles klar, it means all clear, but it is used like 'thik hai' in hindi.

* I miss Rolls-Royce. I miss Arcus, the canteen at RR. I miss my cubicle. I miss Air-conditioning. As weird as it sounds, except malls, you wouldn't find ACs in Europe. And Germany is like the birth place of Mechanical Engineering. Btw, last month it was like 37 degrees C there. But I am not complaining - you know, God, summer, recreation thingy? :P

* You know the sweet smell of soil when it rains? You don't get that smell in Europe. I don't know why. I mean, I know the biology behind the smell, but I don't understand why you shouldn't get the same smell there. I think that's where the phrase -"Desh ki mitti ki khusbu" comes from.

* Football is an unforgiving sport. One mistake costs you the match. Cricket is a better sport for a lotta reasons, one of them is that no one pulls your jersey while playing. This is one of the reasons we don't play football. You come home with a torn jersey everyday and your mom gives you the dressing down of your life. Also our country cant really afford so many new jerseys everyday. The GDP of India will suffer. We will have to import jerseys from Bangladesh. And we all know that all football teams buy their jerseys from Bangladesh. Imagine a country as big as ours importing jersey after jersey from Bangladesh.... this will create a jersey deficit and Europeans will have no jerseys to wear.... and that my friend will lead to no football, europe's only pressure valve.... europe's GDP will suffer.... Hence we decide that for World good, we wont play football... We are just a class apart, arent we!

That's it for now... I cant explain any more complex problems in the world. If there are any, I am sure few of us are already working on it...

Till the next time - Get nerdy :)