I wonder whether people will like this post

When I was younger, in college, and in love with a girl (whom now I can't imagine being married to), I used to wait for the Sunday Times eagerly. The first thing I used to check were the comics, always the comics. Next, the cryptic clues for the Sunday crossword. Then, I used to go through the weekly forecast for my sun sign (which is Aquarius, by the way, explaining why people find me weird), to find out whether my beloved would visit me that particular week, and the possibility of amassing wealth by death of a distant rich uncle. Somehow, it was important to know whether I could expect the oil prices to go up in the coming week (yes), whether I would score well in any of the surprise quizzes mercilessly unleashed on us by sadistic professors (no), whether I was going to be the only person the world would look up to to save them from certain doom (no), whether lord Ganesh was thirsty for milk that week (only once), and whether my friend Kapil Gulati would ever smile (no).

Over the years, though, I have become wiser. I no longer want to know what the future has in store for me. The uncertainty of life has its own charm. It makes me wonder.

I wonder whether I will live to a ripe old age or die young and leave behing a good looking corpse.

I wonder whether, fifteen years from now, I will tell my daughter that I am one of the best in my field, or whether I will change the topic when she asks me what I do for a living. I wonder whether I will be able to convince my wife to name her (the fictitious daughter, not the wife) Sadaa. I wonder whether my wife and I will quarrel over whose surname she (the daughter, again, not the wife) takes.

I wonder whether I will ever beat Rohit at tennis and claim the bounty of five pints of beer which my wife has declared.

I wonder whether my company will ever do well enough to have overseas offices, or whether I will shut it down in some time and work as a brilliant yet unmotivated software programmer in a large MNC. I wonder whether I will stick to software development at all or take up electronics, photography, or agriculture.

I wonder whether I will have the good fortune of having octogenarian parents, or whether the end is near. I wonder whether my parents will ever understand (or already know) that, even thought I have never put it in words, I love them dearly. More, even, than beer and tennis.

I wonder whether I will ever get my knee fixed and try and run the mile in less than 5:45 again. I wonder whether I can still do it, having aged and all that.

I wonder whether, when the end comes, it will be painful. I wonder how long the people who miss me will do so.

I wonder whether our country will ever shake itself loose of shackles and become a great nation, even a reasonable one, and whether I will live to see that day.

I wonder whether the golden age of Rock music will come back, and whether Led Zeppelin will go down as the greatest band in my books or whether someone else will be able to displace them.

I wonder how many people truly like me. I wonder how I will react when I come to know the names of people who pretend to like me but actually don't. I wonder whether I will give explanations or try and reconcile with the reality, or whether I will proclaim that those people never had good taste anyway.

I wonder about grandiose things like the meaning of life, and I wonder about the mundane things like whether I will give in to the temptation and buy the shirt I saw displayed in a boutique.

I wonder whether the so called wrong things that I have done in life were really wrong. I wonder if I will do them again if I had the chance, knowing what I know now about right and wrong.

I wonder a lot. Thank God for uncertainty.