I’m getting too old for these kids

Considering most of our generation won’t really make it past sixty, I feel that when I crossed thirty I became a certified middle-aged man and my midlife crisis that started at 29 is really peaking. I probably shouldn’t have gone as Y2K for the Halloween party. I could have still pretended like ten years ago was the ’90s.

And when I met people at the party I also should have stopped with “the older Spiderman was much better”. I mean why bring up Toby Maguire, and then, realising they are talking about the other Spiderman guy, call him Andy Samberg? These were things I could have avoided.

 

Pop culture makes me want to die

— sᴀɢᴇ sᴜᴇᴅᴇ (@Sage_Suede) March 28, 2018

I could have also not talked so loudly about having a huge crush on the super-hot Renuka Sahane at the theatre when I went to watch 3 Storeys. I should have at least watched the trailer or waited for the movie to start.

But I have done all of these things and midlife crisis has peaked. I have also started writing grumbly letters to news publications. And when I write them, half my mind is on my internal bodily motions. I am constantly wondering why movie songs aren’t being sung by Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik and Sonu Nigam while they are very much alive and kicking. I think once Salman Khan gets run over by a speeding vehicle or blown to bits by a black buck (inshallah), and Dhinchak Pooja replaces A.R. Rahman, all illusions of continuity will be severed and I will truly feel like an alien trapped in the wrong time period.

 

 

In college parties, when I did a perfect imitation of dial-up connection noises in correct sequence, people would go crazy. Sometimes girls would, you know, even come and, you know, shake my hand and stuff. Last month, when I made dial-up connection noises at a party, some idiot DJ type American kid who’s exploring oriental music here recorded it for his EDM song and now it’s all the rage in the clubs. Apparently, Justin Bieber shared it on Twitter and this pre-pubescent idiot says “humbled by the retweet from a veteran performer”. I mean, come on. Veteran? Bieber?

It is a common misconception that pop culture changes over a generation. Pop culture changes faster because it is manufactured specifically by and for those people who have spending power and no responsibilities. Which lasts from college to the first few years of a job. When I was younger I felt like the universe bent over backwards to accommodate my whims and anticipate my fancies. Now if I wish for things, the Universe punishes me for my temerity. I wish for music, universe gives me EDM. If I wish for entertainment I get reality TV. I wish for alcohol, I get TASMACs. I wish for cricket, I get BCCI commentary. I wish for fresh air and the newly-wed couple next door buy an SUV each and propose two diesel generators for the apartment complex.

 

One day aliens will invade the planet and only spare the humans who remember how to do the Macarena and then we'll see who's "getting too old for that, Chloe"

— Chloe Dungate (@ScarfDemon) March 26, 2018

 

The Buddha always said that the only constant is change. The Buddha was what we called our 8th standard social science teacher. Because he left his wife and ran away from home. In any case, I think things change so much in order to ensure that we no longer fear old age and death because they will be welcome. We will take old age as an opportunity to fart a lot, speak our minds without regard to social propriety and greet death as an old friend like they taught us in Harry Potter. And like the canon says, we will realise that just because something is happening in our head, why on earth should that mean it’s not real?

So, I am more of a believer in Adi Shankara. All change is ultimately illusory. Adi and Shankara are shopkeepers down the road who never break my five-hundred note citing lack of change despite my having been a regular customer for the past seven years. Nothing changes. Not the oil they use for bajjis. Not the damp tea dust they use for making tea. They have been selling snarks for seven years (even the spelling mistake hasn’t changed).

 

 

But if there is one thing that hasn’t changed, it is comics, I think. Kids still read Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha and Nagaraj Comics and Tintin and Asterix. Cartoons on TV have changed, but comics have endured. There have been some nice new additions but very few things old have been discarded. That’s very cool to know because if something you love stands the test of time, you know you’ve been loving the right thing all along. I have been eyeing my niece’s bookshelf for a while now. Maybe when she goes off to college they’ll let me crawl in there and live out my final years in a time capsule (it’s nice to find something you love stand the test of time).

But for now I can grumble. I can whine. I can share my tales of woe with the world. Not on physical paper. Not even on Orkut. But still.