Gold is Old!

Mum dragged me for some family friend’s nephew’s wedding (phew!) last week. It was one of those grand affairs where the farm house was converted into some 5 star hotel and the entire area was lined with mouth watering food counters and 3 different types of prawns were served as starters!! (The pepsi was a bit flat but I’d let that pass…)

Anyway, after much stuffing ourselves, we got into the car and my mum says “The bride looked a bit old didn’t she?” I stared at her for 2 mins before I said “Given that your own daughter will soon be 27 and can’t see marriage on the horizon for another 5 years to come, I don’t think you should be commenting on anyone else!” And instead of comforting me she gave out a loud laugh and said “That’s true”

Let’s put things in perspective. It isn’t that my mum hasn’t been having nightmares about giving away her daughter as some wrinkled 40 year old bride. She’s been trying her best to hook me up with lots of “eligible”, “muslim” boys but her efforts to set me up fail miserably compared to my efforts (read tantrums) to keep such efforts at bay! So last week when I finally refused to meet her friend with not 1 but 2 eligible sons she finally gave up! “That’s it! Now you marry whoever you want!” Mission accomplished!

Life was all happy till yesterday when a friend of mine called out of the blue. Let me give you a background of this friend. She’s someone who got married at the right age of 24 and had a baby at the right age of 25. So she called me now at the age of 26 and said “Hey!” Giggle. “Hey, what’s up?” Giggle. “How come you giggling so much? All ok?” Giggle. “Oh gosh have you called me to tell me you’re pregnant again?” “Actually Zee, I have already had my second baby” And the world came crashing down!

The first rude shock hit me when at the age of 19 one of my friends announced her engagement! And then another friend got married and another and before I knew it everyone I touched got married (Midas me!). The second slap was the baby boom when people started popping them out like they’re in fashion or something!

I actually thought I had hit rock bottom when my friend’s baby wished me “Happy Birthday maasi” on my 25th birthday and my friend proudly announced that her child was now attending proper school! But now with my friends moving on to the next stage of life of handling full fledged 2 kid families, that’s it! I’m not only over the hill, soon I’ll be under it!

It doesn’t help that half my head is turning white and I’ve spent a significant part of my evening plucking out the greys from my head (my friends were screaming on the phone that I didn’t have to tell them I was doing that and they could do without such intimate details of my life) ….And it surely doesn’t help that my boy looks so young that when he goes to Buzz they ask him for age proof and even when he shows it to them, they tell him he’s lying!!!! This in comparison to me who has looked like I’m 30 ever since my 17th birthday!!! Hmph hmph!

So after a week of feeling extremely old, here I am blogging away at 3 in the morning with my mom telling me that the reason I’m graying is because I don’t sleep on time! That’s all the explanation I need!

Am off to bed now….to dream of my youthful years and to count the number of black strands left on my head!

PS- the title….my name means gold…go figure!

PPS- My boy moved to Chennai this week. :( I miss him…….