Pictures: Arnab Mondal
Here’s what team t2 was up to at the age of 17....
Skirting with the length
When I was 17, I had just entered a co-ed school from an all-girls’ convent so the length of my school skirt went from three inches under the knee to above it.
Geek in the making
It was the mid-1990s. And it was pretty much inspired by the stuff seen in films like the Sandra Bullock-starrer The Net or Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic.... Yes, coding and computers. The time was just right to give up on the programming language QBasic while embracing C++ or the new kid on the block, Java. The time was just right to search for an audio software like WinPlay3. The time was just right to watch MTV Grind sequences set to MOD audio files. It was a time when one thought nothing was impossible... virtually.
Stepped onto the roller-coaster
At 17, I was out of school and living life on my own terms! I was sick of routine life by then. Gone were the strict discipline norms of school, its rules and regulations. I was free! That meant I could do whatever I felt like, without giving a flying f**k. So from bunking classes to drinking at all odd hours of the day (and then almost crawling back home in the wee hours of the morning and waking up late without any memory of the previous night’s shenanigans) to setting out for the unknown, life felt like a roller-coaster ride!
Adulting right
Seventeen was a year of firsts as I was introduced to the finer (read: debauched) things in life. A year that was mostly a blur was spent shuttling between school fests, friends’ houses, reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude for the second time (and understanding it for the first time), listening to Beethoven’s Symphony 9 on loop after reading A Clockwork Orange and looking forward to turning 18. Little did I know that being an adult is the most overrated thing ever!
Good girl gone bad
When I was 17 all I was doing was going to school and getting good grades. Oh, and crushing on this boy in St. Xavier’s College.
Coming of age
Seventeen was special. It was the age I came of age, so to speak. I discovered freedom, leaving home at 17 to pursue higher studies. Living alone in an apartment meant responsibility, but also freedom. I misused a lot of the freedom I got, but every time I messed up it turned out to be a life lesson. Today, I am grateful for being 17 once. It certainly taught me more than my 30s are doing!
A musician is born
When I was 17, I was listening to as much metal music as I could manage to get my hands on, while somehow managing to scrape through unending exams by a whisker. Oh and I had just picked up the guitar, trying my best to build those chops and I’m still at it after 12 years.
A Phil Foden in the making... NOT!
When I was Phil Foden’s age, i.e., 17, I still believed I could go on to play football like him... or back then, like David Beckham. I obviously wasn’t good enough but at least knew how to dream.
Confused, sulky and clueless
When I was 17, I would often break out into Abba’s Dancing Queen though I was anything but young (okay, maybe by default) and sweet. I was confused as ever, sulky and clueless, but these words can be used to describe me at my present age too. I knew what I didn’t want, but I wasn’t too sure about what I wanted. At 17, I thought 25-year-olds were grown-ups and sorted in life and couldn’t wait to be older. Boy, was I wrong! It was a big year for milestones though... two of the greatest love affairs of my life began at that age, and one of them is still going strong. *wink*
At the crossroads of life
Tuitions. Studies. Boards. Coming of age. School-leaving. First break-up. Uncertainty… That’s more or less how my life at 17 could be summed up as. Dreading science, planning to rebel against parental pressure and opt for Arts in the plus-two level, I was at the crossroads of career versus dreams. And then there were those three idiots (the original ones) — Rahul, Tina and my favourite Anjali! Awww…. What a love story and a saga of friendship! Reminiscing those days, kuch kuch definitely hota hai!
The hide-and-seek queen
Pep Guardiola is interested in playing Phil Foden. I was the reigning queen in hide-and-seek and the cutest guy in the neighbourhood played cricket with me for six months (yayyy!)…. Er… how, does it matter if I was forever on the boundary line and he, till date, doesn’t know my name?! Ek tarfa pyar ki taqat hi kuch aur hoti hai!
Phil Foden went ‘What a feeling’ on Twitter on Saturday night. Exactly my feeling every time I would watch Titanic… gulp…. Or, rerereread that Mills & Boon… or, may be not quite. Phil Foden won the World Cup for the England U-17 team on Saturday. I won… RIDICULOUS!
Gap tooth, the odd pimple, the best friend’s nth break-up with the same guy, from oh-my-god-you-kissed-are-you-pregnant stories to stories of the IT girl in school, the agony of not having a sharp enough nose and the ecstasy of seeing him every time I walked back home from school, getting a mark more, breaking a needle in the middle of the night and then having nightmares about the craft teacher becoming a ghoul, checking out the boys in the school’s evening section and swooning if the guy smiled… being 17 comes with its set of challenges! Please don’t judge. I was human. Phil Foden is… well… obviously… I hope Phil Foden doesn’t read this!
What did you/will you win at age 17? Tell t2@abp.in
