Reflection: Last Year of Being on This Side of 30

By Deepanjana Sarkar
Kolkata, India

I have been thinking and thinking pretty seriously for the past one week or so about the subject of my first write-up for this little magazine, but my indecisive mind like always did not help me much in coming to any specific conclusion. Even though I have been designated as the sole and responsible music critic from Kolkata, I still thought of more serious issues like Mental Health as my first subject of writing. Just when I had almost made up my mind to pen down my thoughts on this subject, I gave it a second thought to again come to square one – my indecisive core.  Then I let it go with the thought of being just my spontaneous self when I sit to write actually.

Hold on, how about my 29^th Birthday as the subject of my first write up? Well, not bad actually. I apparently had no reason to celebrate my 29^th birthday, which came on 4^th of October, because it was not a milestone reaching birthday after all. Neither did I complete my silver jubilee, nor the golden or platinum one and for that matter of fact not even any other milestone. It was just another ‘plus 1’ to my age. Still it became special for me and my family made it a point to make it so very special that it will remain closest to my heart forever. My birthday had everything which touched my heart and soul. It was not lavish, but it was indeed special in its own little ways. In short my birthday had all kinds of variety starting from my uncle cooking Biryani for the first time to celebrate the occasion, uncountable wishes from family, friends and well wishers, my little niece coming to me and asking me immensely baffled “Mashi, what gift shall I give you on you birthday?” the entire family sitting down in the evening cracking the funniest jokes and rolling with laughter and singing old and timeless melodies for me. It was not yet over; just when I thought with a heavy heart that the lovely day has come to an end and sat down to check my mails, a few offline messages flashed on my YM chat screen, it was Anand, my manager who had reached Vietnam just few minutes back after a day long hectic journey from Romania, wishing me “Hey dear wish you a very happy birthday, may all your dreams come true”. I was touched deeply with all these lovely gestures. The day once again made me feel how special I am, how much loved I am and how fortunate and blessed I am to have such wonderful people around me.

I have been telling my friends a few days back with quite a heavy heart about this ‘plus 1’ and my friends and cousins had the ball in their court and did not leave even a single chance to pull my leg saying “hey you have turned 29 and next year you will be 30”. It was indeed bothering me initially, but then I got a fantastic idea from a Facebook friend. This friend of mine who is in her early 50s I guess left a note on my FB wall saying “Wish you a very happy Birthday Deepanjana. You are so lucky because you are still on this side of 30”. My happiness had no limits reading this note and more so because of the fact that this particular message gave me a pretty steady ground to counter all taunts and leg pulling by my friends and cousins. So every time I was being hit by the very loaded “you have turned 29 and blah, blah, I put on my spiritual attire and spell out those few words of Gnan – plus 1 means another year of experiences, ups and downs, laughter and tears, heart breaks and found again, good music, good realizations, new people, new association and Nini, my priceless possession, my best friend, in short a year of priceless wisdom”. Wow, this has been an awesome year, a year which has given me so many colours and essence, above all so many reasons to smile and live my life beautifully and happily. Could I ask for anything better on my birthday?