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 In
my teens and early twenties, I thought of 30 as an age
that would mark some kind of tipping point, an invisible
barrier standing between the occasionally naïve
faith of youth and a feeling of resignation towards
life itself that was sure to accompany the first suggestion
of wrinkles.
Today, as I write this, that figure is hovering close
by, too near to be magical or mystical, too tangible
to be called invisible, too real to be a mere mental
ticking-off point of an appointed hour by which one
would have published at least one book, backpacked to
Vietnam, Laos, Africa, South America and Amsterdam,
and made films with the likes of George Clooney and
Robert Redford.
George Clooney. A-ha! Now there's a dishy reason to
deviate from what I started to write, but outside my
window, shining red lights atop high-rises warn pilots
against flying too low, and someone bursts fireworks
in celebration of another birthday, another wedding,
the beginning of another life.
It brings to mind an evening of three months ago, when
sitting with my grandmother and aunts during a visit
home, I was given unsolicited but well-meaning advice
to change my poorly paying and clearly unworthy profession.
"All these students," an aunt told me, "They
write CAT and go on to earn lakhs every month. You can
crack it so easily."
When she shook her head, perhaps in despair, I was forced
to point out that it was a bit too late for me to contemplate
a career change, considering I was going to be 30 soon.
'Soon' in journalistic parlance could mean a day, a
week, a month, a year, but there it was, thrashing about
in the open like a repulsive creature that one pitied
but could not like, and a horrified hush fell around
the room. My sweet family still imagined me to be a
grimy child with unkempt hair and 30 seemed, well, kind
of old. I could sense the tectonic shifts in the room,
the hastiness with which priorities were recharted and
plans redrawn. "But you should have had children
by now," the aunt said, reluctantly foregoing visions
of a rich niece driving around in a Merc, working out
of a glass-fronted office with faux money plants and
dabbling in charities on weekends to promote world peace.
"Thirty? Your biological clock is ticking away,"
another aunt added for good measure.
If this biological clock were to move out of its spurious
homestead in nightmares, I imagine it would take on
the appearance of the washing machine that ate people
in a Stephen King book. This singular entity is thrown
at me at every juncture with an impunity that suggests
I am defiantly guarding WMDs in my backyard. It's brought
up at the unlikeliest of times, in the midst of conversations
that are seemingly about workplace politics, office
romances or even the US as a misunderstood bully. Colleagues
I have barely exchanged a word with otherwise warn me
that I will soon (is that 'soon' a year, a month, a
week?) regret having been childless at 30, that my body
will stop co-operating with me, and that the washing
machine in my home will effortlessly swallow me one
day. So I made the last one up, but such is the concern
about my being at the threshold of thirties that it
could very well be true.
I could blame Bridget Jones, and doubtlessly, she made
a significant if comic contribution towards furthering
the doomsday myth around 30 by mentioning singlehood,
Alsatians and death in the same sentence. But unlike
Ms Jones, I don't smoke or drink (just in case my mother
is reading this), I am not single, and while I may yet
die alone, that doesn't bother me much. None of this,
however, has sufficed to absolve me of the crime of
turning 30.
Is there similar pressure on men touching 30? The husband,
the only male specimen who was easily available for
a sample study, is three months younger than me, and
is almost never bothered by the growing bald spot on
the crown of his head or the multiplying wrinkles around
his eyes. The latter, he assures me, is evidence of
the fact that he is a happy person. Somewhat disapprovingly,
he adds, "It appears early in people who smile
a lot." With similar faulty logic, he dismisses
his mother's suggestions that the family should have
by now expanded to include bawling babies and soiled
nappies (note that the usage of plural is not accidental).
Of course, it helps that he has an argument that cannot
be disputed: the chimes of a biological clock do not
dictate his life. Excuse me while I look for options
to freeze my eggs.
As I approach this much-maligned age, the fact is that
I am not unduly worried about the book I haven't written
yet. I haven't shimmied down the Cu Chi Tunnels (I will
get stuck if I try it now), and I haven't even caught
a glimpse of Mr Clooney in real life. I should despair,
I assume, in the manner of heroines in books and soaps,
and worry about old age, childlessness, woman-eating
washing machines and such-like. I should cry out aloud
for the love of smooth skin and fertility and charming
men and optimism, all those precious things that are
said to disappear at the stroke of midnight heralding
my next birthday. The horse carriage will reveal itself
to be a smelly pumpkin and I will discover that I have
scales. But what do you know? I couldn't care less.
I am as confused now as I was when I left my home 11
years ago to make a living, and while there are good
days and bad days, I know now for sure that there is
no space for tipping points in my lifeline. I have even
learnt to smile at people who tell me about clocks and
biology, though I may still stifle a sneer once in a
while. I am sure Mr King's washing machine would have
been much impressed.
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