50 shades of age
Understanding everyone is well nigh impossible. Many a times, we think we understand somebody but later it turns out that we understand a part of that person. And that part was specific to a time period and the given circumstances. Eventually, he changes and you notice it while conveniently forgetting the river of age. Time flows, everybody changes. Not dramatically, per se, but substantially nonetheless.
One change that nobody seems to appreciate is the grey in our crown. Salt and pepper, they call it, if you are closer to 50 instead of 30. But if you are young, these greys are seen as an embodiment of stress, sleeplessness and other disorders. Some will suggest you consume bananas as they contain a lot of potassium. Others will advise you on the tenacious magic of Ayurveda. And thus you’ll learn that hardly anybody expects you to do the most obvious thing out there: simply accept the greys.
Once you conclude that the shining white strands are something you’ve earned on your own, you’ll admire yourself a bit more than usual. Not the way you are but the way you do. There could be many medical reasons behind the early onset of ‘shooting stars’ — a term I believe does justice to our topic today — we can only guess without professional supervision. I had my first grey at the age 18. One of my friends had so many strands in his early 20s that he resorted to dyeing; not because he wasn’t comfortable with his hair but because he was tired of answering questions about it.
As a society, we place importance on wisdom but not at the cost appearing old. A rather strange paradox we practice, don’t we? Youth is supposed to be spent on making the aged ones feel sorry for their lack of maturity. But at no time are we to embrace the wrinkles and physical follies of time. Old people are cute, yes, but only because their fangs are long gone leaving behind an innocent face. A youthful countenance better not bear the burden of knowledge with hair chameleoning into undesirable shades.
That is not acceptable. Yet.
The conclusion as always is that life is sad for its confusing trails of protocol. But then, that’s what makes it funny. We respect the old folks but somewhere deep inside, we laugh at them knowing very well that somebody younger would replace us someday and laugh at us too. In some ways, life is sad because it’s so damn funny. Why else would we laugh so hard when they show characters in animation movie falling down brutally from hilltop or something? We laugh at their misery as they fall to make us happy.
Maybe that’s why we feel a weird despair when we face hair fall but none of them are grey in shade.
