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.
