By Kaveri Waghela
I am feeling the jitters already, to be a 20 year old. Something like a young bride feels before marriage and a kid who is on centre stage, yet to take on his speech for his very first elocution competition. I don’t know whether it’s a quarter life crisis (I have those symptoms already).I have been trying to avoid this feeling but to no avail.
I know growing up is a part of life,everyone does,unless you have Progeria! Honestly, at this moment, I wish I had that too. A teenager’s life is cool. No worries, no tensions except some short term ones like the never ending report of seeing your name in the black list or worst being caught in a drunk and drive case or even worst watching your mom’s repudiating reaction to your newly done tattoo at the most censored places…your navel! Being a teenager is fun, it is cool. It’s the best phase that a person can be in. Honestly I value it more than childhood because childhood experiences are only treasured when it’s too late. You don’t really enjoy it you just take it for granted. The most important things that are very necessary and are almost for a given if you are a teenager-Movies, College, pocket money, f.r.i.e.n.d.s and FOOD! That tops the list. Reading Catcher in the Rye at your every emotional outburst and rules that are to defy.
I love all this, every part of it. Though being a teenager has its repercussions. The very fact is puberty. Picture this- you are suddenly developed physically, shot up, higher than your father’s shoulder, have weird voice, suddenly people staring at you everywhere. The worst award of puberty goes to getting your first pimple. But by 17, you deal with it, you are used to it. College is fun. friends, parties, movies, hangovers, spending time with your boyfriend/Girlfriend and telling your mother that you are at you are at your friend’s house are things that are worth lying. Suddenly one fine day, reality dawns on you. That you are 4 months short of being 20.That parents, teachers, relatives, friends are asking you the most dreaded question-,“So Kaveri, what are your plans for the future?”.Just for the sake of it I say,” Journalism” with full confidence. But honestly I don’t know what I am going to do. i don’t know where I am going to be in the next 5 years. Honestly, I just want to travel the world and learn about different cultures, about the different food that every country has to offer. To be laidback and watch the sunrise. To travel the whole of India. To this my distant aunt replies, ‘Then become an Air hostess”!
The fact that I am going to pass out from college in some finger-countable months is already making me feel dizzy. I don’t know whether I will be able to match up to the standards of wherever I work. Maybe because not only me, every teenager in India is conditioned in this way. Kindergarten- high school- college and then? We are not given the chance to appropriate internships. If we are lucky, we do intern after hunting some odd 50 offices and finally ending up in one of the not-so-good offices. We do not have enough experience to face the world after college because we are always so spoon-fed in school and college that we don’t feel like doing anything about it. We lead a cocooned life.I don’t know what I am going to do or what I am going to be. But being 20 is something I really-really dread. Call me immature, but I am surely going to miss being a teenager.
19idealogues 