An Age old dilemma

Kaka, my age is 35 to 40 years, another said she was 61 /62years. All the ladies at the medical camp proclaimed themselves to be at least ten years younger when the slips were being made. We recently held a medical camp for the neighboring villages and our own and the funniest was that all the old aunties, grannies and every woman that was in line denied her real age!

It was hilarious and comic to see them saying in loud tones that they were all younger than they looked but don’t know how the had all the ailments of old age. Buddhapa was just in the air, they said. Must be the hawa –paani of the pind that they all looked older than they were.

All our lives we are manipulated into presenting ourselves to be younger than what we were. When we are young children, we all are in a hurry to grow up, and grow up fast. When we are older, we all want to look, feel younger than what we are. It is always a race against time. The society conditions and exploits us to manoeuvre, engineer us to buy cosmetics, to be body shamed into looking younger and always holding to the fountain of youth. This subtle orchestrating is quiet and bombards women and now men also to look younger in every way. Being fit is one thing, but where to becomes an obsession and we stop aging gracefully, things go asunder. A few grey hairs are the cause of worry. And, then when gravity starts dragging everything down we start striking deals with the new age dietitians who exhort huge amounts of money and then drinking all the dishwater to loose the fat we Punjabis have in our genes.

You know the amount of money we spend on loosing weight through exercise and the new age fangled diets where we are given the newest of seeds that aren’t heard of and numerous smoothies, and sometimes the early morning hot water –lemon, cinnamon mix and the requisite number of dry fruits to accelerate the metabolism. How lovely it would be if we all loved each other and accepted each other as we were? We all are different and we all are born to stand out, to change the quote of Dr Seuss. Instead of becoming and aping the starlets and the glamorous women who are shown on billboards and on social media whose real picture is photo shopped, airbrushed, highlighted, contoured to look all different.

Life has all become about filters, we just don’t want to show our real self anymore.

This has filtered to our villages also, the village shop boasts of an all time high sale of green tea, and every nook and corner we have girls who do facials, brightening ones to look all fair and lovely and the hair is masked for as cheap as Rs 5 thanks to Godrej kesh kala.

This has been the lament of one our maids who thinks I am going the wrong way and should color my hair jet black. I have hair that announces that winter is coming.  All the women go on early morning walks try new things just to loose weight and to look better.

Vanity, beauty is just not for the rich, its for the masses and is so rightly been used by the multinationals when they made every thing sachet size. From the soap, to the cream, to the body soap so full of perfume and the oil and the facemask has been economized and packaged attractively to lure the customer.

We are a nation in a hurry to look, be smart and western and this is influencing the next generation who subconsciously now think the way to arrive or to be noticed is to look western, wear clothes and to have hair that are cut, streaked , and teased ! In fact kids have started eating more junk food to escape eating whole some food and to just have kurkure so that they don’t get fat . It took me a long time to convince a young girl I taught that eating roti was healthy too. She didn’t want to get fat , you see .

To solve this weighty debate , and to stop the clock we need to be confident and embrace ourselves as we are and be confident and what we are ! Otherwise , you and me would also be shouting and saying no we aren’t 60 years old.