Age! Old!

 Just by fluke did the video open. I was not even browsing the YouTube. My mobile misbehaves at times. So was trying to get it back to normal. Thus I came across this video of Hema Malini's seventy-fifth birthday. 

Yet again I remembered Aai acutely. She used to like Hema Malini for aging beautifully. I did not want to disillusion her with discussions of dye, botox, and stuff. I used to hence say that because she dances daily, her body is supple and slim. As for the make-up bit, an actress after all! 

In that party, too, there was this attempt, almost a competition,  to act girlie girlie. Why? I have never understood it. Why not instead age  gracefully? What is wrong with aging? All of us, including a new born baby, are aging by the second, and inching towards death which is anyways beyond our control.

I find this entire merry-go-round very funny.  Often amongst relatives and acquaintances, there are these women whose children are roughly Sanju's age. So they would be tops five years younger to Aai. But they always talk to me as if I am their age. Women who are almost Aai's age, or at least fifteen to twenty years older than me, talk to me of " our generation". I cannot control my laughter though I keep a straight face.

We have relatives who were not even ten years younger to Aai, but they would always say that my Aai was their Aai's age. So once I laughingly said to Aai that the mothers of these ladies must have borne them even before attaining puberty, at the age of ten tops! Well, Aai did not like my naughty remark, but she accepted the truth thereof.

I understand neither, the  fear of  age and its offshoot, the obsession to be younger than somebody who is fifteen or twenty years younger to you. What is wrong with accepting one's age which hardly matters if your mind is fresh and vibrant? What is the use of being young, and dull and dumb!?!

So when auto walla and subzi walla fellows choose to holler at me as "Ajji" as if they have been paid to get such cheap thrills and amusement, most politely I answer back,"Yes, Uncle/Mama"!

I respect my age, my maturity, my reality a lot to hide either of these, or to compete ridiculously with somebody age-wise decades younger than me. Clownish and laughable is such stupid behaviour in my opinion. What say?

Pratima@ Why are people ashamed of their age? Why are such clowns afraid of being old?