Heckled into Afteryouth

(Too lazy to blog much, so am importing from my Facebook Notes)

Last night - the rainy, rainy night - I spotted a cozy kitschy looking rooftop balcony called the Urban Cafe in one of Khan Market's bylanes, and decided to come back some sunny day for a sunsoaked lunch. And I thought it a happy accident that that day was as early as today. Little did I know that I'd be in for a most bewilderingly rude shock, tailed by some squirmy illusion-shattering. I was hoping to be wallflower-like, in a quiet corner of a fuchsia box, with some cheesy melty snack and golden brimful of tea for company. The kitschy rooftop however, turned out to be this sheesha and desserts daytime lounge where all the college bachchas come to get their fix of nightlife coolth during the safe curfew-less hours of the day. I was mortified at the sight of such a vast conglomeration of hyper hormonal beings (I swear, the air was pulsing with alternatively repressed-blossoming desire), but had been spotted by all of them (just hate how they can do it so quickly, shamelessly and ardently, this check-out-the-newbie-who-walked-in thing), so couldn't just turn around and dash for exit. 'Table for one', I asked the waiter, who placed me in a tight wedge between a college gang, a gaggle of Diet-Coke and sheesha-consuming school girls, and a teenagey couple on the verge of breaking up. All of whom were totally trying to psycho-read me the way I'd just spot-checked their life-phases (lonely horny old hag? waiting for forever-late boyfriend? undercover detective sent by parents? - I can only imagine).

The music was loud, fast and something I couldn't have placed even if a meteor hit me there and then, turning me into the Omnipotent Musicy Person I have never been (my scanty and uncool ipod selection being, till date, my most obsessively guarded secret). The walled-in seats were glittery-psychedelic, and the smell of pointlessly tobacco-less sheeshas, nauseatingly fruity. I had a feeling of supreme paranoia - the kind you feel when you see the digits 3-0 floating towards you through the air repeatedly, while a voice inside squeals, 'but I was 21 just the other day!'. To think that all this while, you sat at the cool places and thought you were these people - epitome of words like hangin' out, chilled out, laidback - while everybody else around you was clearly too fuddy-duddy, too past their best-looking years, too bereft of the lushness of pre-youth. And then one fine day a waiter stop-gaps you into this setting and bam! - Life Context goes for a cubist leap-shift, leaving you exactly where you were, just a tad bit wriggling under the little avalanche of Stupid-er. What would a self-respecting, almost delirious, mildy epiphanously shaky-legged girl like me do in such a situation, where she's pinned and wriggling against the wall as dozens of curiouser teen eyes probe? How to prove she's not at all on a desparate wannabe with-it misssion? Of course, she'd order a cappuccino (just to show these little kiddos what solid non-icecreamy stuff blueblooded adults drink, and wish for a cigarette to magically materialise in her hand, to drive the point home even better), stare into space to prove she's not interested in eavesdropping on their conversations; adjust her phone on the table from time to time as if this is all just an interval before the Very Important Call that cool independent loaded grownups attend to; and of course, finish the coffee asap and exit with a strut that could be called purposeful if you didn't look at it for what it was - a sprint.

Outside, I consoled myself by thinking that the blush of my cheeks could most probably be mistaken for a reflective effect of my red muffler, now unfashionably wound up high around neck (why does Khan Market make me feel like an urchin, even on my fashionista days?) , and that there are always safe comforts like buying a First City from the baap of all dilli magazinewallas in the Fabindia bylane. Mag safely in hand (my youth and my city, under 150 pages every month, accessible for 50 bucks only), I walked down to the only other place that I could think of, fuddy-duddyness irony notwithstanding: Cafe Turtle. I climbed the creaky verdure stairs and heard meditative sitaar riffs and smelt the potent fragrance of bookshelves and relaxed: I know this shit. Settling onto a barstool against the balcony views of the busyness of the market, in a very calm, mature, adult way, I constructed a denial argument detailing the bizarreness of it all: how a bunch of kiddos wordlessly heckled me into middle-aged afteryouth. After an hour of reading the monthly horoscope, circling my choicest lil bit o' culture events in the FC calendar, trying clothes on sale, and buying exhorbitant flavoured tea bags, I'm happily re-illusioned about the vast abyss of my remaining youth years, and ready to catharsise my nightmare in a Facebook note. Indeed, all's well that ends well. Especially when it comes with an imagined audience and a cup of Lime and Orange tea for company.