A Kid Called Me Uncle!

This scribe met an old friend the other day. It was the first time in years that he had seen him so, naturally, there was some catching up to do. He was surprised to discover that the friend was not only married but had a one-and-a-half-year-old son. This writer bent down to greet the kid but before he could say a word, the little scoundrel threw a verbal grenade at his face.

“Namaste Uncle!”

Every syllable the toddler uttered burnt like acid. The penman had never been subjected to such torture before. 

U-N-C-L-E! The cruellest word invented by man. 

UNCLE. God damn!

That’s when the realisation hit him. He was an uncle. He has crossed the threshold of 25. His childhood peers now have children of their own. An entire generation has come after him. Time has passed him by. Mortality is the only certainty in life.

The lingual assault took its toll on this columnist. He had been wounded by a human being who did not even exist before last year and he needed to tend to the wounds. He cancelled his day and went home. But he could not recover.

U.N.C.L.E. He could not un-hear it. There was no denying it anymore. He was an uncle.

He has to accept the facts, embrace reality and make peace with God. His youth is fleeting. Yesterday, people called him Bhai. Without knowing, he became Dai. Today, he is an uncle. Tomorrow, he will be Baa. For generations, men have succumbed to this fate. Now, it is his turn.

Just last month, an older colleague had told this writer that he was greying with the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. “Dude, you have white hair,” she had said, as if welcoming him into a league of ageing plebeians. 

He was unwilling to join that club then. But he knows now that resistance is futile. Time claims all. 

Dear co-worker, this scribe is ready to be one of you. 

Looking back, it is clear that the signs were there. This pen-pusher was just in denial.

In the last few years, he has gone from “I’ll rest when I am dead” to “It’s 7 pm. Time to hit the hay”. 

Holidays have become a time to rot on the sofa in front of the TV and only get up for food. For the record Netflix, this paragrapher would like to state that yes, he is indeed still watching at 4 pm on a Saturday. He knows he doesn’t have a life, you don’t have to keep reminding him.

A trip to the market ignites an existential crisis. A kilo of tomatoes costs this male human (I have officially run out of words to refer to myself in the third person, as is required by the paper) his half month’s salary. He serviced his motorcycle this week and now, he must survive by foraging in the forests for food. 

He asked his bank for his account statement yesterday. The clerk laughed so hard that his cheeks turned red. That was a slap in the face.

Speaking of market trips, sustenance, apparently, is about knowing which soap gets grease off dishes better. Choose the wrong one and regret the day you were born. 

Memes are either super relatable or completely incomprehensible. Half the memes circulating on the internet present the familiar embrace of an old lover while the other half might as well be the hieroglyphs of an alien internet cult. It’s a strange feeling to be both “with it” and “out of touch” at the same time.

And finally, goodbye metabolism. The writer used to be able to digest metal. He used to be able to chew rocks like they were candy. Now, he is done if he drinks coffee with too much sugar. Even the air he breathes seems to add to his weight. He needs to love walking if he does not want his own gravitational pull by the time he turns 30. 

For years, this scribe tried ignoring the inevitable. “Count not your years but the episodes of your favourite TV shows” was something he had emblazoned on a jacket once. 

He desperately tried remedies suggested by Wikipedia, from drinking the tears of Peter Pan to performing an exorcism on his birth certificate.

But his friend’s fateful child, who is actually cute so we know he did not take after his father, made this scribe realise that he has become an uncle. UNCLE. Yikes!