And so he awakes from his doleful slumber.

Wow. Would you believe it! I turned 25 on the 4th of February.
You might be wondering "What is so great about turning 25?".
A lot of people make it upto the 25 mark. Thats pretty easy.
So why is this guy feeling so dandy ?

Lemme explain...(and since im doing the explaining ..this may take some time..;) )

Life is a Journey.(I know ..yawn)
aaand right now as I'm zooming on the highway in my custom built
Porsche I just passed the highway sign that read "25"...

( PORSCHE---I know thats asking for too much...but
COME ONNNNN.. Gimme a brake! Uh..bad pun.)

I see you smiling.... got the joke?! Now lets get to know the joke.

Lets talk about my first gear days ( the phase from a baby to 5 years) .
Aaah...First gear, now that was pretty easy...didnt have to do much ..
except maybe make an attempt to the most mentally and physically challenging thing a human
being is taught in his entire life ..................any guesses?
Yeap.. u got that right....Bathroom manners!

Life was perfect then......aannd dont remember much..suppose thats why it was so good ..hehe

Moving on to second gear (5-10 years)
Hmmm... awesome time spent in Hyderabad in Grandpas IDPL Colony.
being pampered a lot.. and boy was I ever gettin into trouble then.

Broke my head twice,got ample stitches on my head,
Played all those kiddie games like chor-police and being a sore loser running away when my turn came to become the police,
Climbing up the guava tree in my grannies garden and chomping on those juicy perus ,
Listenin to all that 80s music wid Papu(my aunt) ,
watching events like Wimbledon and the Olympic games on TV(first in B/w then in colour),
Hum log, Yeh Jo hain Zindagi, Star Trek, Phantom, Mandrake,
Watching all the latest movies at the Club or at Sangeet (English) or Vimal(Hindi) ,
Consuming all those free Parle G biscuits in Junior Kg and Senior Kg,
Eating raw mangoes from the roadseller out side of St. Johns Church High :),
Meeting mummy ,papa and shilpa during vacation,
Scared shi*less while climbing up a broken slide after being chased by a rampaging bull , in the process of mental stasis losing my foothold and going into a concussion finally to wake up on dadas cot in his room wondering what I was doing in bed on such a sunny day..
..yeah...could go on and on...
No wonder my grandparents,both Sharad and Madan mama and papu thought I was too much to handle then..Suppose Mummy and papa got off scot free cause they were far away in Bombay.... now as I muse on all those memories , I acquiesce. I truely was a "Gadda" .

To sum it up though.
If life was the whitest shade of white in first gear, it diversified and was filled with multicoloured hues in second gear.

So far so good..... or so I thought
....cause I had no idea what was in store for me in ...... (*shudder) Third Gear !

Boy oh boy were those days awesome..like a rollercoaster wid all its hi and los.....!
Flunked in a subject for the first time(IX std..1st Unit test-maths .. got 13/40...passing marks were 13 1/2),
discovered Tintin,Asterix,Tolkein , Asimov , Debonair, Penthouse,MTV,Green Day,Suede,Oasis,DOS:/>,Prince of Persia ..not necessarily in that order ;)
Also managed to land myself in a lot of embarassing positions which I am not so keen on recounting now,
Won the under 15 boys Champions Trophy in school (HI for this gear :) )
passed the SSC with average marks..(parents always bugged me that I was never using my potential)...(the LO :( )

Fourth gear , just like third gear, had got its HI-LOs..but this time I had a secret weapon with me that was not a part of my arsenal in third gear.Its called.... Experience..

in what ? you may ask

Experience in screwing things up .
And along with this experience came the confidence that whatever sh*t I landed myself in..I
would get out of it somehow ..by hook or by crook and if that fails then sigh.. by the book.
Once you pass out of School and join Junior College, suddenly you experience freedom in a way not experienced before in life .
No Uniform.
More Pocket Money.
Girls.
Teachers .
Fistfights.
Cricket Matches.
More Fistfights.
Parents unwilling to pay for your broken Glasses(esp. when they keep breaking every 2 months or so).
Standing in the sun at 3 PM on a hot sunny afternoon and guarding your pitch on the cricket ground so that you can start playing 2 hours later.
Friends.
And since this is the stage when you actually get to do so many wonderful (in my case potentially dangerous and stupid ) things for the first time , somehow all my friends from this stage mean a lot to me .

So when I switched gears to the final fifth one....it coincided with the dawn of a new Millenium.
Also with this stage started a new phase of life.Its called being employed. All you gotta do is do stuff and the best part is you get paid to do this stuff,and whether you do the stuff responsibly or not..is a different thing altogether. Along with this employment comes the money . And along with the money comes the empowerment to spend it equally irresponsibly,an inborn skill for me.
Anyways, This stage had its moments... some really sweet and some really awful..one so awful that I had got nausea the whole of the next day and the doc told me that my entire stomach lining was burnt off...brrr...that awful u see... :) made a lot of new friends ..call them work friends... learnt a lot of new things from my peers and superiors..what to do and what not to do , when to say Yes and when to say Yes when you actually mean No ...get the picture..No?! hmph..me neither.

So here I am cruisin on my Porsche drivin the road called life and I've already passed the milestone that read 25. So lets summarise shall we?!

1. Made 100 Lakhs? No.
2. Made 10 Lakhs? No.
3. Invented a device that eventually changed the world? No
4. Discovered any wonder drug ? No
5. Directed a Blockbuster Movie? No
6. Wrote a Bestseller Book? No
7. Own a House? No
8. Own a Car? No
9. Own a Bike? No
10. Got Laid? A big resounding NO.

Oh kay...now that was pretty consistent. And the best thing is I never intended to do most of those things by 25 ( I mean all except the last one..hehe) ....So all these Nos in that final checklist..should I be bothered?? ... I suppose I can leave that question out. I mean...you and me..we both know what that answers gonna be..right???