This is dedicated to my beautiful, beautiful mother and all those people out there who are going through the initiation process of ageing. Ageing is something that I consider to be extremely beautiful but all the complimentary signs of ageing are considered almost embarrassing today. It is important for us to embrace every stage in our life because at the end of the day it’s just the body which grows old not the heart. Happy reading!

She noticed it for the first time

As she was conducting her morning routine of scrutinizing her face

Touching every mole every wrinkle

Like a scientist looking at a reptile under the lights of the laboratory

With her face stretching in a grimace

Tuts and sighs

A long white strand on her lustrous black hair

She gasped and in a frenzy moved closer to the mirror to get a better look

She batted her eye lids a few times like the wings of a dove flying away

"Was it a trick of the light above?"

She took out her pocket mirror and studied it

All colour drained from her face as she confirmed that this tinge of white was indeed her hair

It was a beautiful strand like a flake of snow had fallen from the heaven

It stood as a living testimony for "a silver lining on a dark cloud"

She quickly thought "Doesn't everybody have one strand of white hair?"

That's when the horror dawned upon her when she noticed another one

In a moment her youthful years passed in front of her eyes

And she looked upon it with envy

She felt like an old grandmother with a nest of white on the head recalling about the good ol' times

Oh that wretched melanin!

She had always hoped to age gracefully like Meryl Streep 

But now she felt like a human with abnormalities and averted her gaze from the mirror

"Don't dye your hair! It's not good for you", they said

But she fell victim to advertisements guaranteeing raven black hair in five minutes

She applied that liquid on her hair as it dripped down the sides of her face like leaking sewage

Her hair slowly turned into a distinctive colour as if an angel had touched upon her hairs to turn silver but then ran out of time to complete it

"Try natural products there will be no side effects"

Now she believed the advertisements of a religious guru as she watched him with divine admiration

Her hair did not turn white

But it turned to a distinctive brown

And slowly looked like a mesh of copper wires tangled together

But these grey hairs kept sprouting 

Like weeds on a field 

Finally she resorted to her own little trick

Before she went out she would sit in front of the mirror

And stealthily take her secret weapon: a container of kohl

Like a little child careful not to colour outside the lines of the picture

She began to apply colour to her whites

What a genius she had been!

Now she was indeed ageing gracefully

In the eyes of others