Its a 'pot pouri' of random thoughts, memories, recollections, anything on which I just feel like writing down.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Grow grey graciously
I remember as a little girl, I was very fond of making décor items from scraps, especially during the holidays. If I came across any interesting piece of textured paper, card, postcard, cloth, stone, bangle, bead, wood etc., I would collect them and put them in my little box for use sometime. I made my first autograph album using items from that box; I made dolls and a doll house; I made wall hangings; and so on. But one thing that took place of pride on our show case was a small smooth block of wood, about 10 cm by 5 cm, with a thickness of about 1 ½ cm on which I had painted calligraphically, the words: Grow grey graciously. The words were written in such a way that one big ‘G’ occupied the left side of the wooden surface, while the rest of the letters for the remaining three words were scripted on the right side, one below the other, to complete the saying. I don’t remember what it was that struck my young mind at that point of time to have liked the saying so much and to have captured them in one of my ‘works of art’. Anyway people have said that as a child I was always very matured for my age. But that’s another matter for another blog some other time.
The other day, something happened that brought back memories of my little work of art on growing grey graciously. I never thought that more than 25 years later, that small piece of wood with my little calligraphy would come back to remind me of a lesson of life and bring a smile on my face. And I thought I must write this down.
I joined the Indian Civil Services in 1997. And as is always with every batch of the Civil Services, our batch was a motley group from various streams, including doctors, engineers, MBAs, PhDs, post graduates and graduates from science, commerce and humanities. Our ages also ranged from young to not so young. But there was one thing that bound almost all of us, apart from being 1997 batch civil servants. And that was the ‘hair’ on our heads. I realized that we could be roughly grouped into two broad categories depending upon the state of the ‘crop’ on our heads, irrespective of whether we were young or not so young. On one hand were those who had streaks of grey highlights on their black heads. And on the other hand were those whose hairlines were either receding, or the overall crop had tremendously thinned down. There were also few who could fit into both groups, but very very few who fell in neither. And the last lot were not necessarily the youngest ones. While my closest friend stood an annoyed but undoubted member of the first category, I clearly belonged to the second one. And while she bothered about applying henna to cover up the salted look, I used to calm her down by saying that at least she has the hair, whatever colour it may be.
I didn’t realize I would ever hear those words again myself.
Ten years down the line, one day sometime in 2007, as I was casually preening myself in front of the mirror, I suddenly thought I saw a shiny streak on my head. I thought it was the light. I ran the brush again on that same part, and then casually parted the hair with my hands, and lo behold there was indeed a single strand of grey trying to catch a little more light than its jet black counterparts, as if wanting to show off that its brighter and better than the rest!!!
I stood stunned for a few seconds.
‘No way!’ I suddenly told myself, as if chiding that lone grey hair, as if some rule has been blasphemously broken, perhaps making that grey one know how unwanted it was. I quickly plucked it out from my head, and threw it into the waste bin. And I searched my head to see if any of its colored campanions lurked hidden in the black midst.
Since then, it became almost a regular feature, and every now and then I would find a grey hair striking a regal pose and raising a quiet hand as if asking for my consent to occupy space on me. I said ‘No’, and diligently continued to pluck them off as and when one came to my notice. So there they went: one, two, three, four and five, through 2007 to 2008.
Then came the 4th of October, 2009. It was a lazy Sunday. I wasn’t feeling too well on account of an overdose of antibiotics on a simple illness. My son Agastya had done his share of drawing and computer games, and was practising catching a tennis ball, occasionally throwing the ball at me to check whether his mom could make clean catches. I was applying oil on my hair. And we were also chatting as we carried on with all this. Oiling over, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and happened to fiddle with the hair just above my left crown, trying to see if I could straighten the slight curls around that area. And I noticed another one of those dreaded shiny white strands again. I wanted to pull it out, and tried separating it from the black strands since the hair had become slightly sticky on account of the oil. I didn’t want to unnecessarily lose any black hair while pulling out the white one. While doing so, I saw three more white strands in close vicinity, all of them tiny new sprouts. I stopped myself from checking any further. I called Agastya and told him that mama is getting old, and he can come and see the white hair on my head. He came, had a look, said ‘ok’ and carried on with his game.
I was pretty disturbed. I don’t know why. Maybe I was insecure about getting old and maybe I thought grey hair definitely meant that there’s no stopping it.
I came back to my room, and stood in front of the dressing table, continuing to scour my head randomly. Agastya gave a throw, calling out ‘Catch!’ to me. I wasn’t alert enough, and the ball went rolling underneath the bed. Agastya crawled and reclaimed it, and asked me to be more alert when he threw the ball the next time round. I continued to count and recount the four white hair, assuring and reassuring myself that its only four and no more. I repeated to my son that I am growing old.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because my hair is beginning to grey.’
I don’t know whether I was responding to his query or telling myself, hoping for some miracle to rewind the clock, hoping someone to reassure me that that’s not happening.
Suddenly all the ‘thud thud’ sound of the tennis ball hitting the ball stopped, and I found Agastya standing next to me near the mirror.
‘Show me,’ he said nonchalantly. And I did. Roles seemed reversed for sometime. I was the child, and he the calm adult.
He took a look, and appeared the least disturbed. And this was what he told me:
‘Look mama, you are not getting old. And you are not old. I will not let you grow old. So what if you have few white hairs. I can’t see them. And even if I can see them, how does that matter. I will never allow you to grow old. You have to remain the way you are. If you grow old you won’t be able to play with me; I won’t be able to practice cricket, tennis, football with you. I have an idea ! I think you can now colour your hair just like aunty Thoibisana has done the other day. Her hair was looking nice with some red colour that shines when she goes out in the sun. I think for you we can try either purple or green. I think that will be better than red. And anyway I love you whether you have black, white or grey hair.’
By then, I was already smiling and Agastya was also full on. In fact, I had to stop him by saying that I would rather prefer to have white hair than purple or green. And that its no problem anymore. He seemed pretty happy, gave me a hug and kissed me on my cheeks and got back to his game.
‘Catch’, he threw the ball.
And I made a neat catch.
Agastya may be only six and a half, but sometimes my son speaks with so much of maturity. Maybe it’s the innocence, maybe it’s his unconditional love for me. Maybe he is reassuring himself and not me when he says that mama cannot grow old. Maybe that’s his way of protecting his domain of comfort and security. But whatever it is, it surely had the effect of also wrapping me in a fold of love and warmth, where there is no room for any kind of doubt, or any kind of worry about grey hair sprouting on my head.
Loss of youth, old age and mortality are fears that lurk in every person’s mind and heart. While excessive concern with the first may hint at some level of frivolity, we cannot deny that the first is linked with the next two, consciously or sub-consciously. But a few grey strands need not disturb the very boat of life. Grey hair doesn’t mean that one is going to become senile overnight. Neither does it mean that I shall no longer be loved any more by those who love me anyway. Whether my hair greys or continues to be jet black, I am still my mother’s favourite, and she continues to be concerned about me if I even accidentally cough while speaking to her over phone. There’s no point in pulling my hair out over its colour or lack of it. Growth is part of life and greying too is a part of that growth. I embrace that with all the grace and maturity that can come only with age and experience. I must have been barely eleven or twelve when the beauty of the saying ‘Grow grey graciously’ struck me. Now is the time to live it. I shall grow grey graciously !!!
The other day, something happened that brought back memories of my little work of art on growing grey graciously. I never thought that more than 25 years later, that small piece of wood with my little calligraphy would come back to remind me of a lesson of life and bring a smile on my face. And I thought I must write this down.
I joined the Indian Civil Services in 1997. And as is always with every batch of the Civil Services, our batch was a motley group from various streams, including doctors, engineers, MBAs, PhDs, post graduates and graduates from science, commerce and humanities. Our ages also ranged from young to not so young. But there was one thing that bound almost all of us, apart from being 1997 batch civil servants. And that was the ‘hair’ on our heads. I realized that we could be roughly grouped into two broad categories depending upon the state of the ‘crop’ on our heads, irrespective of whether we were young or not so young. On one hand were those who had streaks of grey highlights on their black heads. And on the other hand were those whose hairlines were either receding, or the overall crop had tremendously thinned down. There were also few who could fit into both groups, but very very few who fell in neither. And the last lot were not necessarily the youngest ones. While my closest friend stood an annoyed but undoubted member of the first category, I clearly belonged to the second one. And while she bothered about applying henna to cover up the salted look, I used to calm her down by saying that at least she has the hair, whatever colour it may be.
I didn’t realize I would ever hear those words again myself.
Ten years down the line, one day sometime in 2007, as I was casually preening myself in front of the mirror, I suddenly thought I saw a shiny streak on my head. I thought it was the light. I ran the brush again on that same part, and then casually parted the hair with my hands, and lo behold there was indeed a single strand of grey trying to catch a little more light than its jet black counterparts, as if wanting to show off that its brighter and better than the rest!!!
I stood stunned for a few seconds.
‘No way!’ I suddenly told myself, as if chiding that lone grey hair, as if some rule has been blasphemously broken, perhaps making that grey one know how unwanted it was. I quickly plucked it out from my head, and threw it into the waste bin. And I searched my head to see if any of its colored campanions lurked hidden in the black midst.
Since then, it became almost a regular feature, and every now and then I would find a grey hair striking a regal pose and raising a quiet hand as if asking for my consent to occupy space on me. I said ‘No’, and diligently continued to pluck them off as and when one came to my notice. So there they went: one, two, three, four and five, through 2007 to 2008.
Then came the 4th of October, 2009. It was a lazy Sunday. I wasn’t feeling too well on account of an overdose of antibiotics on a simple illness. My son Agastya had done his share of drawing and computer games, and was practising catching a tennis ball, occasionally throwing the ball at me to check whether his mom could make clean catches. I was applying oil on my hair. And we were also chatting as we carried on with all this. Oiling over, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and happened to fiddle with the hair just above my left crown, trying to see if I could straighten the slight curls around that area. And I noticed another one of those dreaded shiny white strands again. I wanted to pull it out, and tried separating it from the black strands since the hair had become slightly sticky on account of the oil. I didn’t want to unnecessarily lose any black hair while pulling out the white one. While doing so, I saw three more white strands in close vicinity, all of them tiny new sprouts. I stopped myself from checking any further. I called Agastya and told him that mama is getting old, and he can come and see the white hair on my head. He came, had a look, said ‘ok’ and carried on with his game.
I was pretty disturbed. I don’t know why. Maybe I was insecure about getting old and maybe I thought grey hair definitely meant that there’s no stopping it.
I came back to my room, and stood in front of the dressing table, continuing to scour my head randomly. Agastya gave a throw, calling out ‘Catch!’ to me. I wasn’t alert enough, and the ball went rolling underneath the bed. Agastya crawled and reclaimed it, and asked me to be more alert when he threw the ball the next time round. I continued to count and recount the four white hair, assuring and reassuring myself that its only four and no more. I repeated to my son that I am growing old.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because my hair is beginning to grey.’
I don’t know whether I was responding to his query or telling myself, hoping for some miracle to rewind the clock, hoping someone to reassure me that that’s not happening.
Suddenly all the ‘thud thud’ sound of the tennis ball hitting the ball stopped, and I found Agastya standing next to me near the mirror.
‘Show me,’ he said nonchalantly. And I did. Roles seemed reversed for sometime. I was the child, and he the calm adult.
He took a look, and appeared the least disturbed. And this was what he told me:
‘Look mama, you are not getting old. And you are not old. I will not let you grow old. So what if you have few white hairs. I can’t see them. And even if I can see them, how does that matter. I will never allow you to grow old. You have to remain the way you are. If you grow old you won’t be able to play with me; I won’t be able to practice cricket, tennis, football with you. I have an idea ! I think you can now colour your hair just like aunty Thoibisana has done the other day. Her hair was looking nice with some red colour that shines when she goes out in the sun. I think for you we can try either purple or green. I think that will be better than red. And anyway I love you whether you have black, white or grey hair.’
By then, I was already smiling and Agastya was also full on. In fact, I had to stop him by saying that I would rather prefer to have white hair than purple or green. And that its no problem anymore. He seemed pretty happy, gave me a hug and kissed me on my cheeks and got back to his game.
‘Catch’, he threw the ball.
And I made a neat catch.
Agastya may be only six and a half, but sometimes my son speaks with so much of maturity. Maybe it’s the innocence, maybe it’s his unconditional love for me. Maybe he is reassuring himself and not me when he says that mama cannot grow old. Maybe that’s his way of protecting his domain of comfort and security. But whatever it is, it surely had the effect of also wrapping me in a fold of love and warmth, where there is no room for any kind of doubt, or any kind of worry about grey hair sprouting on my head.
Loss of youth, old age and mortality are fears that lurk in every person’s mind and heart. While excessive concern with the first may hint at some level of frivolity, we cannot deny that the first is linked with the next two, consciously or sub-consciously. But a few grey strands need not disturb the very boat of life. Grey hair doesn’t mean that one is going to become senile overnight. Neither does it mean that I shall no longer be loved any more by those who love me anyway. Whether my hair greys or continues to be jet black, I am still my mother’s favourite, and she continues to be concerned about me if I even accidentally cough while speaking to her over phone. There’s no point in pulling my hair out over its colour or lack of it. Growth is part of life and greying too is a part of that growth. I embrace that with all the grace and maturity that can come only with age and experience. I must have been barely eleven or twelve when the beauty of the saying ‘Grow grey graciously’ struck me. Now is the time to live it. I shall grow grey graciously !!!
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