The tale of the Eurail Youthpass

This tale, is in fact, not in the slightest way connected to Eurail youth passes, or any other competing railway pass products.

In fact, the regular reader (yes, all four of you) would be well within your rights to remark that this blog post is connected to anything at all.

The statistics, far from being a miniskirt that covers more than it reveals, is in this case, a brazen admission of truth.

It took this blog 263 days to churn out 49 posts at an almost Henry Ford-esque assembly line rate. The 50th post, took an additional 223 days to get its act clean.

Now even Geoffrey Boycott, and on one of his particularly stodgy days, does not take so long to move from 49 to 50. If this blog were a cricketer, Andy Zaltzman would have at least five blog posts dedicated to its tempestuousness.

And just like Geoffrey Boycott, this blog does not have any legitimate excuse for the long transition to 50 either.

But this tale however, does allude to the fact that on the day that the author publishes this post, it will mark the first day of that portion of his life when he is not eligible for a Eurail youth pass.

It also marks the day he can no longer be legally called up as a conscript to the American army. But not being a US citizen, or never even having been within a 1000 miles of the US, there wasn't too much chance of that happening.

But that is besides the point, if there ever was one.

Consider:
By the age of 26, Paul McCartney had composed Eleanor Rigby, Michelle, Girl, Blackbird, Hello Goodbye, Penny Lane, Sergeant Pepper, Hey Jude, Yesterday amongst many others.
By the age of 26, Jim Morrison had done pretty much all he would ever do before settling down to a relatively tranquil retirement in the Parisian neighborhood of Philippe Auguste.
By the age of 26, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar would have scored 7801 ODI runs and 5177 test runs, replete with 21 and 19 centuries respectively. (This is actually correct. Check cricinfo's statsguru if you don't believe me.)
By the age of 26, Mozart had written 31 symphonies; all his famous violin concertos, 10 of his piano concertos, and 15 operas, among several other pieces of music which adorn large parts of my hard disk.

On the other hand, the high point of the author's 26 years centered around a Eurail youth pass, hence the title.

223 days, as you no doubt have been counting off the calendar.

Not much happened in the meantime. On this blog I mean. There was lots otherwise, including that thing they call the 'sub-prime crisis', lots of cricket, lots of Indian victories in particular, and lots of trips to Bangalore for various reasons.

The last point alone, is worthy of several future blog posts.
And hopefully, this time, it should take less than 223 days.