Quarter Life Crisis
‘25/26 is not a nice age for a man’ the post appeared several times in my wall. ‘……25/26 is not a nice age for a man,…..Your ex-gfs are getting married,….. your career has just started…….Elders treat you as unproven theorems, ….. Every Aunty you meet ask “Shaadi kab kar rahe ho beta !!”, ……while uncle asks “Career ka kya socha hai beta…”,…….. You have all the confidence in the world but little achievements to show, ….. You know that whatever you have been taught about the world in schools has been sheer waste of time ……..’ I have heard a lot about a middle life crisis. But this is different; it’s not a middle life yet so for a reference let’s call it a quarter life crisis.
I remember my grandma citing an example of my dad and uncle wearing pants only when they were enrolled in college. Last month Nepali media published Prime Minister Dr. Bhattarai’s photo wearing a shorts while he was receiving an award of a SLC Topper. Seeing the photo in Newspaper my mom looked at me ‘See even the great man like Baburam used to wear shorts till SLC’. She took off the spectacle and gave a stern look at me ’what’s wrong with today’s youth! Whatever you give to them they won’t be satisfied’. And I hope my grandma if was alive today would support my mom. I am sure that my mom and grandma’s tone was why are you guys not like them? You are thinking of buying an Armani Jeans and you mom show you the picture of the great person wearing shorts and ask you to be like him.
‘Can we be like them?’ Great!! ‘Can be’ but the Getup!! ‘Hell No’. First thing he was not great when he used to wear the shorts and second how could you ignore the fact that we could be the great like him. The worst part is that the parents won’t believe in Quarter life dilemma no matter what you do. So I just laughed at her.
In the evening, it was a small family gathering and the newspaper on the table had a half page picture of Leaders signing a peace agreement. What more to ask for the gossips? But the sky is the limit. The gossip became a dialogue and gradually an argument. Happens every time when everyone thinks he/she is right. Dad and I had a tug of war. For him the peace agreement was great, for me it was bullshit. He was satisfied with the development and I was ironic. He strives for the social responsibility I strive for the money. He preferred cooperative I preferred company. For him agriculture was the backbone of economy for me it was technology. He wants road network I want a neural network. I want to work in the IT Park; he worked to build the PuspaLal Park (Park in the memory of Puspa Lal Shrestha the founder of Communist Party in Nepal). He sided with Gaddafi I supported Obama. I was sounding like a capitalist and no doubt he was a Marxist. Finding my ideas antithetical to his, he conclude ‘You have nothing, you are a zero’ and ended the conversation.
‘What!!! I’m different, does that mean I am a Zero’
I don’t know why he said so. Was it because I was really a zero or was it because I was a quarter life unproven theorem? The dialogue by Bhisma in Mahabharata ‘मे एक सुन्य हुँ जिसका अकेला कोही अस्तित्व नहि हे’ was ruling my mind ever since I watched Mahabharata few months back. Then I started believing myself as a zero. I even called it a Zero Anxiety. Today when dad gave his conclusion he hit in the bulls eye.
I didn’t have any concrete things to prove a theorem. I wished I could say ‘I have all the confidence in the world but little achievements to show’. But confidence cannot be shown and achievements; I don’t have. So I was in a deep crisis better to say in a quarter life crisis.
