The Anxiety Of Counting Down To 29

As I inch towards *shudders* 27, I find that I am suddenly hyperaware of numbers. I am not sure when the dread began, but there’s something eerie about approaching an odd number like 27 that feels… inconveniently adult. Maybe it’s the internet’s obsession with timelines, maybe it’s the relatives whispering in my ear about what I should’ve achieved by now. Whatever it is, it surely feels overwhelming.

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On the one hand, I’m unhealthily nostalgic, with a habit of going through photo archives. I love being the youngest person in the room, the one who gets an eye-roll when I mention the year I was born—pure bliss. But lately, I find that I am curious to know what lies on the other side. Now that my frontal lobe has allegedly finished developing, I’m oddly excited for my thirties. Being stable, a little wiser, and actually knowing when to call it a night? Honestly, it doesn’t sound like the worst deal.

As ELLE India nears three decades, I’m curious whether the constant pressure to stay relevant and current is similar to the pressure we place on individuals. Every milestone measured, every year analysed—but do we really need to treat time as a quantifiable resource alone? I know I’m not the only one negotiating my relationship with age, ambition, and the myth of ‘having it all figured out.’ So I turned to the people who understand this pressure in a way few do—those who’ve built careers in an industry obsessed with the ‘next big thing,’ where relevance has an expiration date printed in invisible ink.

SHWETA KAPUR, FOUNDER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR, 431-88

Kapur speaks to me in the comforting tone of an older sister—the kind who gently laughs at your panic and tells you to breathe. “At 29, I was living my ‘organised chaos’ chapter,” she says. “Running shows, designing collections, and thinking sleep was optional. I used to believe that by 30 you should have it all figured out, but turning 30 felt freeing; the pressure just faded away.”

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When I ask what changed, she smiles, “Everything and nothing. It’s no longer about all-nighters and terrible coffee; it’s about working smarter, with better coffee.” She laughs at an old memory, something all of us can relate to, “I honestly thought I’d be retired in my thirties when I was in school. Back then, it felt so far away, so ‘grown up’. But now that I’m here, it actually feels like the start of something new.”

ISHA BHANSALI, CELEBRITY STYLIST

“Having faith is healthy. Turning that faith into a deadline is where I went wrong.” Bhansali says this with a clarity that comes from spending 19 years in an industry that rarely slows down. I find myself nodding when she says, “Hustle culture today is on steroids — everything is fast, fleeting, and on fire. No wonder so many of us feel like we’re falling behind.” But as Bhansali points out, it’s not the work that exhausts us — it’s the timelines we attach to our worth.“Millennials have power — we’re not done, we’re just hitting our stride.” 

There’s a calm conviction in her voice when I ask about the industry’s obsession with youth. She laughs at her own expectations as a 29-year-old, “I thought I’d be married with kids by 30. Instead, I was leading teams and growing.” Her message is clear: don’t punish yourself if your path doesn’t look like everyone else’s. Women carry clocks in our heads – timelines for careers, kids, marriage – and those clocks can feel deafening. But Bhansali insists on rewriting the script.

RID BURMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER & DIRECTOR

“Now that I’m here, I feel more active, more charged, and more curious than I ever was in my 20s,” Burman tells me — a line that instantly dismantles the myth that ambition softens with age. In his late twenties, ‘having it all’ meant going after all things shiny and materialistic, but underneath that, he admits, “I just wanted to be respected as an artist. The dream wasn’t the big commercial — it was being given the same plate as my heroes.” Everything shifted after what he describes as a life-altering pause, “Two years of sabbatical, travel, and self-reflection taught me more than any job ever did.”

In the end, Burman’s journey became less about reinvention and more about returning to himself. Turning 29 can seem scary — there’s no poetic way around it. Entering a new decade comes with a weight no amount of self-help books or motivational quotes can magically dissolve. Maybe turning 29 isn’t about having the answers. Perhaps it’s about loosening your grip on the ones you thought you needed. And as I listen to people who have lived a little longer, loved a little harder, failed, reinvented and risen again, I’m encouraged to embrace the years and the decade ahead.

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