Been 21 years ...

It is the age where you enter the lower limit of the next age-group in many of the forms and registrations. Thoughts popping in your mind are typically around middle-age quirks and how does one's processing speed change, family having evolved into a stable unit getting ready for the first birdie to leave the nest in a few years, middle management to senior management transitions (past and future), ruminations around why are we doing what we are doing leading to the dreaded "what is the purpose of my life?". And then during one of those mundane drives towards the office, with the radio jockey cracking the same old jokes, making prank calls to unsuspecting people (while I always doubt it is unexpected), playing the top 10 songs and dissecting the same trying to be hilarious, suddenly says - "Can you believe? Munnabhai MBBS turns 21 years today."

While there are multiple conversations and deliberations you are a part of focusing on how time flies, this unexpected pronouncement surprises you in a different way. You are in the middle of your daily brooding, perhaps planning your day or week ahead - this one suddenly takes you down a very different memory lane. This is in the same league as "I have more than 20 years of experience", "Let us plan for our 20 years reunion", "I have been staying away from my hometown for more than 20 years now", "Oh, last I met him was 20 years ago", "Time for the third renewal of passport" and of course, "Next driving licence renewal will be for 10 years only."

You usually cannot afford getting all nostalgic that time of the day, or that day of the week - but this is different. If this comes at a time when you are planning your year-end break, knowing very well that the elder birdie's board exam preparation will not allow you to do a lot of family stuff during the break, this transgression allows you the much needed reprieve from the rigmarole of finding something meaningful to do during the break.

While movies get picked up and put in the watch-list based on whether or not you were "allowed" to watch those movies then, or whether the particular movie was easily available, or whether those movies "clicked" for you, it is usual to pick up and discuss movies based on qualifiers like "this was the first movie I watched with my friends", "this was the first movie we watched during our courtship", and "this was the first movie I watched after I joined my first job". Then there are movies which she has been asking to watch together for a long time, but this time you have no excuse; this new movie released on OTT - worth experimenting with the genre she has been asking you to taste for a while; the younger kiddo wants to get a piece of cake and asks you to accompany him because the elder one is not available; an obscure movie in your bucket-list for no reason - the list goes on.

All in all, a wonderful time spent during this break ... all thanks to that coincidence of having tuned in to the particular FM channel that time, that day - and for once giving some importance to what was said.