AGE , AGING AND AGE DEFYING FORMULAS

AGE , AGING AND AGE DEFYING FORMULAS
Suddenly, there is a slew of adverts on Indian TV of aging creams. The preferred models being the actresses and starlets who have just recently retired from playing the nubile girl in the Hindi movies.

As it turns out, 32 is a v old age and if one wants to look ‘young’ at 32, enough to keep your husband attentions, then one has to start using these products!! The punch line being look 23 at 32!!! The latest advert I saw today brought the bar a bit lower- its reduced from 32 to 28!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I go by the adverts, some things are clear
- 32/28 is old age
- At 32, girls are married and the focus is on husbands- possibility of an unmarried woman dolling up for a boyfriend is not shown
- That women now at 32 are acknowledged to have more purchasing power than in the past- enough to allow them to buy un proven, expensive and trivial cosmetics products
- No such products for men , as yet. Guess these will follow in a couple of years (like the fairness cream thing, last couple of years, it’s the men fairness creams that are slowly hogging the airwaves)

What does it mean to a person like me, who his well above 32 and wayyyy past 28, Apart from making one feel old!!

If I look at myself, I think I had greater fun later on the years than early on. This would probably be true for a substantial number of women in India.

What was I doing
Before 18: studies, exams, watchful mother, studies focused father….pimples, resenting looking older than my elder sister

18-22: studies, tension of ‘building a career good , pressure to avoid the doomsday scenario repeated by my dad ever since we were kids- that of becoming a LDC in a govt dept; passing the exams, finding a job………

23-28 : start working, pressures of getting married, a non cooperative boyfriend who does not see eye to eye with parents on the issue of marriage (ok, a clarification on this by the then non cooperative boyfriend- that I was a cooperative daughter but a non cooperative girl friend).

Yes, in between all this, there was fun, but this fun was tempered by many considerations, some self created and some not, which did not allow a ‘carefree’ time of fun. Being a good daughter – in terms of education and in terms of meeting the relative conservative standards at home and similar things in all public and private spheres of life. One rebelled, did precisely the things that parents would rather have us not do (like having a boyfriend and associated escapades), but all of them were done with a feeling of guilt – of not being the perfect daughter/student that was expected of us.

So, basically, all these early years were one of interesting strife, a period of tug of war between what I wanted to do, what I thought I wanted to do (or maybe not) and what was I was expected to do. One’s horizon was growing, one’s wish to extend it was growing too but there were constraints, temerity, some of them v intangible, which always prevented one from , atleast feeling like a ‘rebel without a cause’.

It was post 23 that things began to change….one started becoming more adventurous, more confident of oneself, more confident of what one was thinking and when one’s access to freedom was becoming greater by the day.

I think that a lot of real development and real exploration for me started only after 23 and continues till today. Am pretty lucky in a way on this, that I am not caught in the conventional hoopla which many women get caught in – esp post marriage etc.

In any case, the point is that at 36, I am, I think, a much better person than I was at 23- if not better, atleast I am more relaxed abt what I am – with all the faults and shortcomings. At 36, I probably have more character in me than I had at 23. In between 23 and 36, I think I have had fun- much more of a carefree fun than I had before that!! Even at 36, there are new exploration of oneself that one is doing- still trying to be what I think I want to be!!!!!

So, why would I want to roll back years and become 23 again???? Why would I even like to LOOK like when I was 23. At 36, grey haired, a couple of kgs extra weight – all classical signs of ageing can be seen…but then, who cares! One is a mirror of what one has been through….and what genes one gets….why would I want to hide/defy either!!!

I am sure there are women like me in India, who feel the same. At 36, they want to look what they look like just what they look like. They have managed to loosen some of the strings with assorted expectations from assorted sources…..so why would we like to add an apology of not looking like am 23 at 36 !!!

For all of us, would be good that these adverts caught up with what we feel! Maybe that will persuade more of us to spend our hard earned money on a worthless products that are being sold so painstakingly!