Juvenescence

Juvenescence

  I always feel that life becomes meaningful if you are sincere in instilling meaning to your existence. It is not the other way round. There are moments when one feels distressed, defeated and deserted but life almost brings back in a different way what you have lost. It is a wonderful mixture of opposites- giving pleasure and pain in rotation.

Soon after completing my Post Graduation, I was preparing for different competitive examinations. In the English essay paper of one of the Competitive examinations, there was a question,’ Your College Career’. I thought it to be a wonderful opportunity to pour my heart out. Who knows, no such occasion may ever come to me to write my autobiography in an answer paper. I got really inspired and like all inspired idiots I went out to write my biography honestly.

The out-poured verbosity, as far as I remember, was a lengthy justification of my misadventure in academics. I went on to describe it as youthful exuberance because squandering of time and energy in meaningless pursuits appeared to be just at that point of time. A young man should have an independent mind of his own and should be allowed freedom to commit minor mistakes till he realizes the difference between good and evil. I wrote about my literary activities at the expense of my studies which brought laurels in recognition of my efforts. While concluding I categorically stated that I had no regrets for my experiments with youth. In short, I glorified my youth and extensively quoted many incidents from the autobiography “All my Sins” of Hans Habe to substantiate my arguments. Surprisingly the examiner was impressed and awarded more than eighty percent. In retrospect, I feel, it is like justifying the unjustifiable. How funny! But then I remember the poem of A.E.Housman                                           

“But I was one-and-twenty,

 No use to talk to me” 

In spite of the academic misfortune in the initial years, I was able to express myself in more vibrant and meaningful manner. Life compensates what it takes away.

It is a fact that most of us like to justify our action-whether right or wrong. It becomes very difficult and embarrassing to back track the statement already made. I remember a joke. A lady was celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday. Her neighbour, who had gone on a foreign assignment for four years incidentally returned the same day and was promptly invited. On reaching the venue he asked the lady in amazement, “Madam, you had your twenty-fifth celebration four years back”. The lady gravely replied ‘celebrities never switch words’.

Recently, in my regular morning errands I came across a group of engineering students enjoying late morning tea with cigarettes. What they discussed among themselves was simply rubbish and they cared a fig for their uttering.  They stay in a nearby building. The roof top is decorated with four to five DTH antennae and filled with empty alcohol bottles. What sort of life they lead? They could have been, very well my children, had I been living in another state. I feel very sad simply because it is not the celebration of youth but rather abuse of innocence that disturbs, destroys and devastates the juvenescence. There must be collective concern for the youth. We must find a solution to it. Life becomes meaningful in enjoying it in the right spirit. Glorify the youth but condemn the ugly.