Spotting grey and spouting philosophy!

It is interesting to observe the various emotional dilly-dalliances after the first grey is spotted. Thanks to the increased rate of pollution, exposure to the harsh rays of the sun coupled with a lot of tampering of food products, the greys appear at mid-twenties and early thirties much to our chagrin while the generation of our parents and grandparents dodged them quite efficiently until their early fifties or so. I spotted mine couple of years ago, say two or three years ago one sunny morning when my sister was playing with my lose tresses when she exclaimed, “Oh! Vella mudi! (Oh! Grey hair!) Me being the philosophical and academic tried not to make much ado about the grey spoke in muted tones, “Maybe the sun is shining a little too brightly!” but my sister being the sharp-witted one she is, did not give up. Right there, she plucked out the strand and gave it in my hand. I had to believe it then.

It is interesting to observe the responses or rather reactions to the first grey – The thought of growing old first comes to the mind, followed by the aesthetic aspect – denial of growing older and then the pseudo-dismissal that age is after all a number. No matter how much one philosophies about age being just a number, the fact that that number is steadily increasing never leaves the mind.

No matter what King Solomon wrote in the Proverbs about grey hair being a crown of splendour, the fact remains that one can never completely come to terms with the first few greys. King Solomon made the grave mistake of not adding a number when he mentioned “grey.” He was a wise man after all and he would have foreseen that the average life-span would decrease by and by and hence they greys would appear at any given time. But while reading the Proverbs, grey always meant anything grand (read grandfather, grandmother, granduncle and so on) but when the same grey is spotted on my crown, it is anything but grand.

Speaking of grand and grey, I realize that in no matter of time the appearance of greys will become quite a familiar phenomenon. The greys appear; I pluck them out and smile smugly at the thought of having defeated age. I know that the victory will be short-lived but I am like King Bruce who tried and tried to defeat the defeat before the defeat defeats you!

Recollecting that I am the same person who vociferously stated in her passionate feminist College days that “I don’t know why people colour their hair. After all grey hair signifies wisdom” makes me cringe with a sense of having judged people at the prime of my dark hair days. Even now you cannot spot the greys until you hunt for them but I write this post as a remainder for the coming days of wisdom and age and of course plenty of greys.

So, wise readers of this blog, tell me what you think of these shades of grey ;)

Image 1: shutterstock.com

Image 2: Internet