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.

Remember when you were young

Well, admittedly there are worse ways to spend your birthday than to catch an early morning flight from Mumbai, and then flying to (yes, you guessed right) Chennai!

Now I am no stranger to celebrating birthdays in Chennai. I have done it (all of) once before. That was merely a decade ago when I turned 15. I was to head off outside India for the first time in my life later that day, and owing to Bangalore's international airport (the current one, not the one which must not be named, and also it seems, the one which will not be built) basically not existing, the aforementioned flight was taken from Chennai.

Anyways, back to April 8, 2008. 25 is a strange feeling. It imposes itself on you in a way only a round number like 25 can. Plus it has that added smirk of being a quarter century (which only serves to make you feel older). And yet it doesn't give you the legal rights to do anything you can't already do (except I think running for the Rajya Sabha. Phooey). It doesn't give the legal rights to own a flame thrower, or issue jihads, or do the other cool things a lot of us would like to do. But yet, like a nagging back pain, it has an odd ring to it which you just can't ignore.

It is that age when promising under-21 players who failed to deliver are all but written off as failures. It is the age when a young player who was 24 isn't called a young player anymore. And excluding Jens Lehmann, it is that age above which almost no player exists in the Arsenal FC squad. Which means if I am suddenly signed on by Arsenal, I'd be the second oldest player in the squad (I don't know which is more shameful, the Arsenal signing, or being second oldest!).

Also, I am told, 25 is the median age of India. As if being a 'Jack of all trades' always isn't enough, here is yet another place I go back to being average. Damn.

And, back to April 8, 2008 yet again. Kodhi and K played their part in livening the day up. Very strongly, at that. One stuffed monkey named Bananas made an appearance on this day, courtesy the aforementioned K. Incidentally, someone in a hurry believes that the stuffed monkey should named MK (pronounced M'kay like Mr. Mackie does) and not "Bananas". The jury is still out on that one, but in the meanwhile my niece acquired the very stuffed monkey after an extremely hostile takeover. Credits are in order to Madman who thought up the original idea.

And yes, in case you missed it, I turned 25. Remember when you were young ?