Growing Up...

The villain was being bashed up left, right and centre by the hero. Rajinikant, or Superstar, as he is affectionately called by his fans, was having a field day. The movie was rather a damp squib (I can imagine some fans' blood pressure climbing if they come across such a statement!), but not for us back then. We were enjoying the movie, and my cousin was literally jumping up and down in the small space between the rows of seats in the theatre. The theatre itself was not remarkable, but the experience for us was. The reason: we were a bunch of middle school kids (my jumping-jack cousin was a primary school kid) out for a day having fun.

Cut to the present: most of us would not recall this incident, and none of us would go to the same theatre, and certainly not to a similar movie. We are now grownups, and so have become more mature, sophisticated, and even complicated. The theatre probably has grown up too, I guess, by adding better sound equipment and cooling systems.

I recalled these thoughts when I had visited my home last month. The locality too had grown up in a way, if you would call increased traffic, congestion, more buildings, eat outs, stores and people, as an improvement. Similar to us, the area was more mature, sophisticated and complicated. In short, the city grew with us.

My school started as a single two floor block housing sections of students at each grade (I was then in the first). We had a lot of playground space and fun. Eventually, the school too grew along with us, adding a few more blocks, an auditorium, and some cricket and volleyball infrastructure. By the time I graduated from the school, it had changed beyond recognition. Today, 'beyond recognition' seems to be an understatement, since I myself could not recognize the place, after having spent some 12 years of my life in there! So many kids, faculty, and buildings, so complicated.

My country's economy is posting an impressive 9% growth rate every year. When I was young, that number would barely wheeze past the 3% mark (not to mention that our school economics books would tout that as a really impressive and ideal growth rate!). Over the years, as I grew up, the country too grew, slowly and steadily. Today, the (relatively) grown up country has more of everything, but has also become incredibly complicated and sophisticated.

The reader must be wondering why I am trying to draw some parallels here. Let me confess that though I am drawing parallels between the growth of my city, school, country and myself, there is no deep reasoning behind it. It is just an observation that along with myself, so many aspects of my life have changed as though they were all marching in tandem. Doubtless many will have observed the same things, so I will not be so conceited in claiming that these growth stories coincided only with mine.

A few minutes well spent in fleshing out these thoughts!