Twenty Six & Single
Just a couple of days ago I got a phone call and a message from two of my friends who are planning to get married this year. The phone call came to me at a time when I was anxiously looking at the wall clock. It was office time. However I did congratulate him and wished him advanced happy married life and promised him thought a call from my side. However, because of the busy schedule in office I couldn’t call him back. But a just lingered into my mind.
I started calculating how many friends of mine (both college & University) have actually settled into their lives. And when I mean “settled” I mean the obvious “tying the knots“. I completed my masters in 2009 and it has been just 4 years since then. But I found almost 6 out of 10 of my friends either now are married/engaged or staring at marriage. Indeed 25-26 is an interesting age for a man. You start your twenties with a lot of friends and by the mid-twenties many of them are lost. Irrespective of social media revolution you leave with a few good ones.
People faded away into their careers and relationships. When you’re single and in your 20s, you throw on a pair of jeans and look fabulous. In your carly 20s your love life seems to explode every 20 minutes or so. You like every beautiful girl you see. At 26 you are cautious and appreciate beauty carefully. Since you realise the outcome of appreciating everything beautiful may not be always beautiful.
The adolescent’s hormones don’t disturb you anymore. Through Facebook you come to know that your ex-girlfriends/crushes are getting married. You continue to be a romantic at heart and hopeful for a fairy-tale story. But you seem to forget writing romantic poems. Your career has kick-started and finally elders are taking you seriously. But on the flip side college guys feel that you are too old to have in there group. You can no longer cat whatever you wish without putting on some weight. (Especially some on your belly) You look like an ape if you don’t shave daily.
Every aunty you meet ask you a time pass ques tion “Shaadi kab kar rahe ho beta?” (In Assamese-Biya ketiya pathiba) While uncle counters that thought by arguing “He is still too young for marriage” At 26 you have all the confidence in the world but little achievements to show. But you already have the first-hand experience of life.
You recognize that whatever you have been taught about the world in schools have been sheer waste of time. You have witnessed some of your friends stumbled in the test of life, who actually have topped their exams during college/University days.
You may have already gone through the experience of being denied of a job, even after passing the test because you didn’t have the so called contacts. Politics till now was a dirty word but now you feel it everywhere. Office politics is a part of your life. You realise now love is not that blind and carries its own terms and conditions. There aren’t free lunches for you. But at 26 you know many things which you didn’t know in your early 20’s. Of course you haven’t deciphered all the secrets of life.
But you have learnt enough to recover yourself if your next door girl rejects you. You tell yourself- “That’s not the end of life dude.” Let me find a better girl.
After biting the dust of failure, you have achieved some success now. And I dare say you know how to be successful in future too. Yes, there aren’t free lunches, but you have learnt to earn them. You know now that love isn’t blind and carries some terms and conditions. But you have the poise and believe that you will find the right girl for you.
The confidence that you knew everything about love and relationships in your 20s is gone now. The ignorance of youth is bliss. You have accepted the fact that life is a great traveling journey. But at 26, you remain highly ambitious. You want to fly high like an eagle. You plan and think a lot. But at the same time you ensure that your feet remain on the ground. You may be full of romanticism but show greater restrain in decision making.
