Monday, 26 November 2007

Going up a Generation

It is not very often in ones lifetime, that you get elevated from one generation to the next. Unlike the grand families of yore, when it was "normal" for parents to have a multitude of children ranging from 30 to 2 running around them, todays scenario sees a far lesser number of cousins/siblings and by extension, a lesser number of nephews/nieces.

I must admit I'm not ready for a change in Generation. I'm too busy still growing up, silly for a person who'll touch 23 this December. I still find myself making some spectacular bloopers( such as calling women 3-4 years older than me "Aunty" ), and a few lesser ones( calling their husbands "Uncle" ). Having lived a highly sheltered existence, it is a rather refreshing yet strange experience watching the changes in my immediate family - my little cousins all growing up( they're bigger than me now. I wonder when the retribution will begin for all my, ahem, lessons in discipline ), the ones older than me are getting married, and most significantly, one of them just gave birth to a handsome, strapping young lad. And just to rub in the significance of the event, she sent me a snap of when we were little.

I'm going to have to get used to walking on the streets and getting called "Uncle" by the little kids. It's funny though, how my peers/elders believe I'm still childish, and how the youngsters in my family believe I'm all grown up. In languages like Hindi or Malayalam, there happen to be words that describe the age I'm in perfectly, say Bhaiyya or Chetta. Funnily enough, English doesn't seem to have an appropriate equivalent.

Enough about the old geezer, this is a tribute to Akshay Menon Pullat, the boy who pushed me up a generation.

The Proud Parents:
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7186/pict0176wq8.jpg

The Proud Uncle:
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4171/pict0101aj5.jpg

The Proud Uncles: One had a bloody fever
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/8241/akshaynikkimepz9.jpg

The Mother and Me:
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9411/dhanyamesmallwa9.jpg

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