Chapter 8: When You’re Sixteen
The story
Sixteen was just the most glorious age for me.
I’d done the hard stuff at school and I could see
adulthood quivering on the horizon, seductive and terrifying in equal measure. And then my mother dropped the bombshell that we were migrating to London. At sixteen, I was going to leave the world I knew for another that I had just heard about from John Lennon, Enid Blyton, Arnold Bennet and pictures of the Queen.
In some ways I felt wise and clued up about how the planet worked and was a published contributor to the Statesman, a Calcutta broadsheet. In other ways I was completely naïve and confused. I lacked any knowledge of the opposite sex, or dealing with my embarrassing stammer. My mind was already chasing foggy visions of London: of rain and rhythm, of glamour on Carnaby Street. Riding a Lambretta. But the thrill of starting again appealed to the Aries in me.
Any excitement was tinged with the loss of
certainty about where we might live, how long
would our meagre resources last? Would I get a
job? My naivety at sixteen didn’t quite make me
comprehend that leaving wasn’t just changing
address – it meant changing shape. I would
become a different version of myself: coloured
by my old life, yet lots of new detail filled in by
the new.
The song When You’re 16 speaks to that exact moment – the one caught between imagination and reality, between the self I’d been and the one I hoped to grow into. The verses ask the same questions I once asked myself: Will London set me free, or chain me down? Will my voice find harmony in a new tongue, or just sound strange? Will I be noticed, dismissed, admired?
The truth is, none of that got answered right away. For a long time, I stumbled trying to know who I really was. I mimicked, I observed, I tried on versions of myself like different coats… Each day a new sketch, life draws.
And that’s the strange magic of sixteen. It’s the age of high stakes and impossible dreams. One moment, you’re imagining stardom – a sultan of cool in a fast car – and the next, you’re just hoping someone will sit next to you at lunch. You want to be wild and free, but part of you still clings to the familiar rituals of home.
Looking back, I realise how brave it was – to arrive in a country where nothing was mine, and try to build something anyway. To laugh with a borrowed accent. To fall in love with winter. To sing songs in a voice I hadn’t yet grown into. Sixteen doesn’t last, but it leaves a mark. It’s the springboard. The sketch. The moment before the ink dries.
And even now, after all these years, I sometimes catch a glimpse of that sixteen-year-old boy in shop windows or passing trains. He’s walking fast. Dreaming big. And somewhere deep inside, he’s still wondering: Will I belong? Will I matter? Will I be free? He doesn’t know yet. But he’s already started singing.
Lyrics
hen you’re sixteen, your world is small Imagined games and friends to call A wind blows west to follow a dream. That glorious age that you have been But time moves on, without a pause Each day a new sketch life draws.
Refrain
When you’re sixteen, when you’re sixteen When you’re sixteen, when you’re sixteen
Will London swing and set me free Or chain my soul no melody? Will the heels and flair of Carnaby, Lift me up to be wild and free? Will I be a bore or a rock star, A sultan if cool, in my fast car?
Refrain
Will new friends laugh or welcome me, My accent alien, my history? Will I impress or seem naïve, A backstreet boy they can’t believe? The search for love, the daring dance Will courage give my heart a chance?
Refrain
