Faux Pas.

I don’t know why it always happens to me.

My friend and I had met for dinner after a long long time. He is incidentally the guy who had volunteered to pick me up from the airport the first day I landed here. We were catching up on all the latest happenings in our lives. Since I had met him last, he had graduated from school, and got great job offers from the top places. Instead, he decided to be a faculty at the school and I was intrigued by his reasons. So while we ate our dinner, he explained to me his different options and why he did what he did.

“So congratulations then! It must feel great to be an assistant professor at the age of 30.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere got tensed while he stopped eating and looked at me. I failed to understand if I had said something inappropriate out of the blue. Naturally, I looked confused.

“Errr…. Did I say something wrong?”

He continued to give me that disgusted "ab main tere ko maar dalunga" (I'll kill you now) look while I debated whether I should ask him or just ignore his looks. I was thoroughly confused about the sudden tension in the atmosphere. I mean, we were having a great conversation until now.

Finally, he spoke.

“I am 27.”

sunshine.