Theory of Relativity of Age

When he was five
and refused a toy,
Sai looked up and asked,
“Dad, how old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” his father said.
A small silence followed.
Then the boy murmured,
“When I’m thirty-five,
I’ll have a son of five.
And I’ll never ever deny him a toy.”

Time moved the way it always does.
Now Sai is fifteen,
bright, focused, scoring high,
yet rising into the untidy air
of youth and its storms.

He wants his ears pierced,
a new cut,
pants low enough
to show the edge of freedom.
His parents frown.
He turns to his grandfather,
who listens,
smiles,
and asks for time.

“When you’re thirty-five,”
the old man says,
“your son may not even ask.
He may step out in a skirt,
and your daughter may prefer
the bare sky on her skin.”

He laughs softly
at his own memories—
the slap for long hair,
the ban on drainpipe pants,
the scolding for strange music,
the narrow permission
of Godzilla
and Kabuliwala.

Generation to generation,
the wheel turns.
Eternal.
Cyclic.
A puzzle with no clean answer,
a knot of desires
pulling against each other.

So walk with care,
as if on a blade—
balancing yesterday,
today,
and the unruly tomorrow.

Let the old soften their gaze,
close their ears when needed,
and thank the world for moving on.

Let the young cool their anger
and remember how history
waits behind them.

Let the teens apologize sometimes,
and still follow the call
of their own becoming—
knowing they cannot
please everyone,
yet mindful of the quiet,

But naughty

record keeper in the sky.