How long is twenty years?

Musings on the passage of time.

Image credits: Utsav Mamoria (Tumse Na Ho Paayega)

This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers’ Group. Each of us examined the concept of ‘TIME’ through our unique perspective, distilled into roughly 400 words. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.

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How long is twenty years?

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be older. In the age of my innocence, I failed to notice that women age differently; not one birthday after another, like everyone else, but in the one minute of the microwave oven, in the four minutes of the French press, and in the hour point five of the dishwasher. 

To want to be older was a cry to be taken seriously, which I would later learn is not a privilege dispensed in accordance with age. 

On my thirteenth birthday, I trotted round the house, triumphant that I had crossed the threshold of childhood. I was eleven when I started reading literary fiction. The grown-ups were visibly discomforted by what they imagined I was reading: Are you old enough for this? 

I would count the years until I could grab the wheel, cast my vote, enter a nightclub, get a drink.

True to form, on the very day I turned eighteen, I, queen of procrastination, promptly enrolled in driving school. The year was 2007. My newly acquired driver’s licence warranted a celebratory dinner. I remember holding that rectangular piece of glossy plastic at the table that evening, tracing my fingers over the printed text: Valid until 2027. 

The licence to drive a private vehicle in India is valid for twenty years from the date of issue, or until the holder turns forty, whichever comes earlier. After the age of forty, the licence is issued only for ten years and thereafter for five years subsequently, a poignant reminder of an expected decline in sensory faculties as we age.

I recall the odd sense of emptiness that filled me that evening. More than once, I remarked that I could barely envision my life in 2027, twenty years later! At the time, twenty years was longer than I had lived. I had no measure for that immense duration of time. 

Now, as I write this piece, we’re halfway through 2025. Much of that once-inconceivable expanse of time has passed. I couldn’t have foreseen a thing about the life that was yet to unfold for me. I had no plans in particular, not even a blueprint; a long, gaping period of time stretched out before me until the year 2027. 

Reams have been written about how life passes you by, yet there’s nothing like finding yourself at the far end of what you thought was forever.

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Pieces on ‘TIME’ by fellow writers:

• “So… When will shit actually hit the fan?” by Sailee, sunny climate stormy climate

• Time: I Just Want to See It, Watch It Move by Abhishek Singh, The Comic Dreamer

• Timekeepers - Retracing the Universe’s Deep-Time Signatures by Devayani Khare, Geosophy

• Keeping Time by Reshma Apte, Fanciful Senorita

• Locating Myself In The Map of Time by Priyanka Sacheti, A Home For Homeless Thoughts

• The Thing We Pretend To Understand by Avinash Shenoy, OfftheWalls

• The lost intimacy with time by Siddharth Batra, Siddharth’s substack

• Lessons Time Taught Me by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer

• A Time for Worship by Vaibhav Gupta, Thorough and Unkempt

• “Tata Mummy Tata” by Rakhi Anil, Rakhi’s Substack

• The vicious cycle of sixteen - A dancer’s take on keeping time by Eshna Benegal, The Deep Cut

• How mystery writers play with the clock by Gowri N Kishore, About Murder, She Wrote

• TIME INFLATED, JUSTICE DEFLATED. by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain

• What keeps the fool in me delighted by Rahul Singh, Mehfil

• The endless ebb and flow of Time by Siddarth RG, Siddarth’s Newsletter

• Time, please! by Shaili Desai - Litcurry

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