Age of agelessness

There are some people on whom age and time are much too lenient. People who can shock others with their marital status or matriarchal status. While I admit that there are very few so blessed, there are some like the gorgeous Nadia Moidu who can still pass for a 25 year old, the ageless Nagarjuna who can make even his own son jealous, or the bubbly Sachin Tendulkar who looks super cute and delectable inspite of all these hours and years in the sun. Now I don't really care how old movie stars or cricket players look as long as they are the best in their trades.

I am one of those lauded ones on whom age has bestowed its graces rather abundantly. All through out my life, I have been attributed an age according to the formula,

Vidya_Age_Assumed = Vidya_Age_Actual + x, where x in { 2,3,4,5}.

Let me try to explain this phenomenon. I have a father who is at 6 feet and well built and mother who is just above 5 feet, slim and petite. Ideally I should have come somewhere in the middle, or better even, tiny like my mom. But I happen to take after my dad in a superbly mighty fashion which has made me a female specimen closing resembling an Indian weight lifter; a looming 170cms tall, a weight I would not want to disclose, broad shoulders and a healthy appetite(ahem). I am proud of it now, but there used to be a time when the shoe size of 9 and the dress size of XL used to prompt me to adapt saint hood, only because that particular category abhorred sandals and any white saari is always 5.5 meters long.

Talking about my mom, my darling gem of a mom, the society used to hate me for calling her mom. And so I did it with vengeance. In a textile shop, I would walk atleast 10 meters away from her and call her 'Amma' from that distance. The sales girl would look around to find someone appropriate in size to be my mother and failing to find any, would sadly look at me as if I am a retard fond of calling every pretty woman passing by as mom. As if that would make me give up! I would call and call until my mom awakes from her reverie in the world of clothes and apparels and acknowledges me. She always taught me to be proud of myself, convinced me that being big does not make me ugly, protected me from the embarrassment by explaining to everyone that I take after my father and I am thankful to her for all that!

There are a few memorable instances of my life that I would like to jot down. The first one was when I was 17, and was attending a wedding function. When I told the groom that I am attending St Peter's Senior Secondary School, he eagerly asked me whether I taught Physics or Computer Science. After smiling and explaining that I was a student there and not a teacher, I progressed to curse the couple that all the children born to them, whether male or female, would be atleast 6.2' tall, weigh a Quintal each and would have feet as big as a baboon's. Of course, I didn't speak this out and haven't checked on them to see if my curse really worked or not.

The next significant event happened in God's own IIMK. On the first day here, after dinner, on virtue of of having an unenviable geographic quotient and an equally proficient friend, Neetha and I got lost in the campus. Nevertheless, both of us being rather confident of ourselves, claimed that we can find the way ourselves and ultimately reached the exit. Help was imminent and we got it the form of a female going somewhere and who agreed to take us to our hostel. A few minutes after we started walking, the kind female asked if Neetha was joining the next day. Not to be left aside, I loudly proclaimed that I am joining too. And the look I got! Our guide gave me a top to bottom stare trying to find out if any part of me was young enough to set foot(or whatever!) inside this youthful, bubbling campus. Failing to find any, she gave a shrug which said it all. Back in room, we laughed about it for hours and I was amused how coolly I took it.

Its rather strange how you want to look grown up and mature at the age of 15, I remember draping myself in my mother's saari for the effect. Little do we know that most of us might want to reverse this effect about 20 years later and getting into a teenager's clothes, or applying the array of age suppressing creams would hardly help. Frankly, I fear growing older, solely for the reason that I don't know what awaits me at the other end of the road, but there are many around me who demonstrate through their lives that aging is a graceful process worth looking forward to, and a few white hairs shouldn't make anyone panic.