The appetizers were done, the turkey not quite and I was getting weary of having the same tired discussions with the same old uncles about religion and politics. So I headed to the table where the younger crowd seemed to be having a blast. As I approached them, one of the girls, who must have been in her early twenties, looked up at me, smiled and got off her chair, “Sajid Uncle,” she said, “you can sit here.” That I have been steadily growing old, although depressing is something I have come to accept, but when the hell did I become an uncle to a twenty year old? “No, beta,” I played along gamely, “you kids have fun.” There was a football game playing on the big screen TV, and a crowd cheering in front of it, but the only player I seemed to know was Tony Romo, and the only thing I knew about him was that he used to be Jessica Simpson’s boyfriend, not a stat that would impress these jocks. Not knowing quite what to do I headed down to the basement where there were at least twenty kids screaming and shouting, running and jumping, fencing with pool cues and chucking frisbees. In the corner was a TV hooked to a Playstation with an abandoned game of Call of Duty. Having just finished a Band of Brothers marathon on HBO I was all amped up to be a virtual war hero and shoot myself some Nazi slime. So I picked up the remote and hit Start a few dozen times to resume the game. A gun showed up on the screen and I hit some more buttons and eventually it started to fire. Allright ! As I moved the joystick I saw some other soldiers show up and before I could decide whether they were good or bad guys my screen turned red and the gun fell to the floor. Damn! After a few more attempts at trying to shoot myself out of trouble but running out of ammo, rushing for cover but dashing into walls instead, crouching to avoid being seen and not knowing how to stand back up again, I was about to give up, when a kid who could not have been more than six or seven, tapped me on the shoulder and took the game controller from me. “Let me set it up for you; to make it easier” he said. Now I have to confess that as much as I have wanted to be one, I have never quite been a gamer. Whether it was not being able to jump over a wall playing Prince of Persia or avoiding missiles in Space Invaders or staying on the track in MarioKart or getting nauseous playing Wolfenstein, I have lacked the skill and more importantly the patience to do well at video games. But this was definitely a new low. This, I realized is what a mid life crisis feels like. More than half my life behind me and I need help from a six year old to play a video game. Buying a Porsche would be the predictable way to proceed, riding a Harley without a helmet along Route 66 the reckless way, but for me it had to be a drive to the nearest Gamestop. “So what’s hot right now?” I asked the teenager at the counter. As Anjum often says, you can take the Indian out of India, but not the India out of the Indian. “Hot?” the tongue pierced, goth dressed punk responded. Hey, when I left India, hot was good, then it became bad, then cool, then wicked then narley and apparently now its cool again. After about ten minutes of rapid fire talk between the teens behind the counter and some in front about the relative merits of pure role playing games over multi player online games and the ineffectiveness of Facebook to monetize Farmville and Mafia Wars,I was given two options : Journey or Mass Effect 3. Journey, I decided was too cerebral for a video game, so Mass Effect 3 it was. Its been several weeks since and the game still lies in its shrink wrapped case on our kitchen counter, mocking me, daring me to open it but so far I have been too intimidated to try, knowing fully well that I may never be able to get past the first level, living proof that vidigamea is not a made up phobia. Of course I could get Bilal to help, but I have to keep up the facade of a responsible parent for at least a couple of years more; besides he has no time from watching another season of American Dad. As the end of another year looms in front of me I can’t help feeling blessed that the toughest decision I have had to make is whether or not to help Commander Shepard obliterate the scourge of the Reapers. And even as I ponder this important question, Alia hands me a plastic hammer, pulls me by my pinky and seats me down in front of her Wack a Mole set. Finally a game I can play.
Happy New Year everyone !