On the fascinating fact of life - AGING

Well, with all the advancements of medical science, we still have not found solutions to stop aging neither have we, with all technology experiments, managed to stop time. Called it old fashioned, but of these things of the yore are here to stay. So like all aspects of life, when something is a given, we attempt to make the best out of it and make it look good in our minds (at least)…

There is something very poetic and lyrical about aging. Most of the amazing emotive words and phrases in the English Lexicon have something to do with it. Check out ‘wistful blues’, nostalgia, memories, ‘ache in the heart’ are all concepts around this. While three quarters of the cosmetic industry tries to fight this ‘evil’, quite a lot of the literary world survives just by writing and painting visages of this concept.

I have a theory. When we age, we initially have an excitement of moving up the time ladder. More and more independence comes our way and the excitement of ‘growing’ is in every neuron in our body. The excitement dies down somewhere down the line and the inflexion point is somewhere around thirty years, when we built in a ‘subtle sadness’ of the fact that we are ‘growing old’. The general tendency is to look at ‘those good days’,’ when I was your age’ and starts sounding a tad boring for some of the folks listening to us. Then of course the war stories creep – “You know this incident when I...”; And interestingly we ignore the ‘there he goes again ….’ glances around us.

That is the funny part! Then, there is the romantic part where our five senses sends a pulse when we have a déjà vu experience. That taste, that sight, that familiar smell et.al. Our minds then moves into quickly to place the similar experience of the past and then there is ‘wistful blue’ fleeting though your mind and the all too familiar ‘ache in the heart’. What does that tell you? We never cease to be our young selves. Age seldom hits our mind when we are silently sitting along and flirting with our solitude. It is only we are amongst others that we are silently reminded of the sundry years of the past. Within ourselves, we are the toddlers, who loved to play with trivial things, ask the naïve questions and had our lives full dream, ambition and hope.

So the recipe for remaining young – think young , feel young and the final secret ingredient - spend some with yourself – once in a while …..

On my daughter's high heeled shoes

This piece is dedicated to all my ardent readers who abuse me on my procrastination and ‘promise of a more productive tomorrow’ ; I finally decided to write when the abuses descended to bomb threats and booby trapped emails which procreate viruses on opening…

Shopping has never been my forte! It has always been something others are better than me at. I have done the minimalistic stuff during my courtship days and hid the yawns and fast emerging critical comments. But my wife was quick to latch on to my ennui and as we grew old, she was understanding enough to make sure my wallet was well informed and not me of the purchases ! Well, not to sound chauvinistic, she picked all the right things and made the right choices ( including me :-))


Now shoe mania – that is a different story… I am fond of shoes – well that is like saying that the Sultan of Brunei is rich! I am obsessed by shoes. The story is that as a kid I would wear my shoes in the morning and my mother would remove it only after I am fast asleep – otherwise I would not allow her. Being the spoilt first child of my parents – I did have my way in those days! Well, circa 2010, the disease has been genetically passed on to my 5 year old daughter. She is equally obsessed about shoes. The most popular pastime she has is to dress Barbie in different shoes physically or play one of those computer games of changing shoes of Barbie !


So, the last week, when I had a rare Saturday to spend time at home, we did a little 'father and daughter' shopping. I had to pick a regular black shoe (yeah, I like all colours of shoes as long it is black) and I thought of picking up a sandal for her. We spend exactly 5 minutes for my purchase and then we moved into the kids section. The offerings were not too much as it was regular store with shoes for all genders and ages.


She picked a silver beaded high heel shoe right out of one of her comic books. In the next 45 minutes, I coaxed her with every other model in the store (fearing some straight talk if I land up home with heeled shoes for her ). Every ploy in my book of negotiations fell flat as she did not budge from her stand and choice and I politely relented at the end…


In spite of my initial fears, I was pleasantly surprised to see her walk wearing them. There was a certain sense of poise and confidence which I found inexplicable. She seemed to have aged by another 5 years just wearing them. Well, may be my brain is playing the cuckoo, but I was just happy seeing her thrilled wearing it. Maybe that is what Jimmy Choo means when he says that ‘women in heels make men heel around them’ …