18 TILL WE DIE!!!!
When I heard Bryan Adams song of yesteryears what caught my attention were the words I am Gonna be 18 till I die.
The latest trend on the global market is trying to get younger by the day. I am sure many of you out there would agree with me that seeing one more _______ MOM AD is going to make us see red. An 18 plus girl (A professional model for sure) portraying to be a mother of a perfect looking ten-year-old girl who comes running out of nowhere and hugs her like a stunned actor trying to pitch in the “MOM” for a movie role as a heroine keeps looking in shock and disbelief. Don’t get me wrong we all love to look young and beautiful. We do need to take care of our body but more so our mind and soul too. But advertisements day in and day out keep clashing with the realities of life when they start making people try to reach dangerous standards of external beauty. Take, for instance, the little girl who brings her gang of chillar party to her home and says that her mother’s face is lucky for them as they need to see her face before they go for a competition.
“AAP KA FACE HAMAREY LIYE LUCKY HAIN!” I silently laugh imagining this in real life. Imagine what the father of the child must be going through. “Saaley kya mera face aap logon key liye UNLUCKY HAIN????”
A few years ago a perfume ad that annoyed many of us was one where, one whiff of the man wearing an intoxicating perfume and all the women around the city-run behind him blindly foregoing their boyfriends, husbands and families. Please! Tell me what are we Women or something else?
The poor men are suffering too. An already good looking buffed up movie star helping out the dark loser of a man who can’t score a single date with a tube of famous fairness cream is another funny sight. Suddenly the MAN is surrounded by girls thronging all around him vying for his love and attention. I feel sorry for the man. I am sure many are thinking in their heads. “ Can’t handle one, what will I do with so many!!!!”
What got this article going was when I came across a very beautiful Woman step out of the Elevator clad in a pink Cotton Saree draped gracefully around her slim frame. She wore a big red dot on her forehead, but what caught my attention were the silver streaks of hair on her head that glistening under the lights. She gave me a heart-stopping smile, complete with a twinkle in her eye and I thought to myself what a beautiful old woman. It was a rare sight !!! Not the Woman but a woman with white hair.
I look around to catch glimpses of other women around me but all I saw were sights of women who don’t even want to be termed women but “girls” in their mid-fifties and sixties trying very very hard to look like they were in their 20s. Don’t get me wrong ! I am not being judgemental. Looking young and pretending to be a teenager are two totally different things. But it’s painful for the eyes to watch women more than men trying to act the wrong age. Wearing minins and hairbands and pigtails and giggling like school girls way past your thirties does not make one look cool. It only makes one look pathetic. And the wrong impression that women get that men are googling them because they look beautiful is all wrong again. Woman you are being stared at because the men are probably wondering if you are wearing your daughter’s clothes. And for all the men laughing out there, I can feel your pain when a 20 something girl you were trying to get attention (with your potbellied, tight t-shirt on, a cap on your head) calls you “ Uncle”. Yes! Accept it gracefully. You are an Uncle!! It is because I have heard derogatory comments about such men and women being made so many times that I felt that this must be shared to save further embarrassment.
The Ad World also glorifies these concepts- just look back and notice the adoration the 30-year-old woman in the restaurant receives when the waiter throws away 5 of the candles on her Birthday Cake because he just can’t accept it that she is a 30-year-old. So what are all the 30-year-olds at the other tables to do or all the 30-year-olds watching their television screens supposed to do???? Wallow in self-pity and rush for the nearest store and get their tube of anti-aging creams????
Not that men are left out of this misery. Six packed men who never seem to age are a threat to the pot belied aging men who are always afraid of the next family get together they need to attend where they may be the butt of all jokes.
It’s not wrong to look young but being young at heart and pretending t be young are too totally mixed up concepts. When you are confident from within and have a personality that is real, its all that matters. So never be afraid to be the real you. That’s all that really matters.
I find it funny when some of my so-called well-wishers poke fun at me for wearing a saree on special occasions and not a dress or a short skirt and top. When I tie up my hair in a chignon or a braid they say that I should just let it down so that I don’t” look my age”. My question is why should I look younger than my age??? Isn’t beauty all about what we look like on the inside? Doesn’t our personality, our values, our ethics, our attitude, our behaviour matter more than just looking good on the outside? Its more like peeled off walls being coated with varnish just to cover up the patches. Beautiful on the outside, plain ugly on the inside! Being cool has nothing to do with the clothes we wear!! It’s all about the attitude!!! Fake padded bras, Botox treatments, anti-aging creams, false eyelashes the hair dyes are all very good but when you take your make-up off then some people may never even recognize you. This brings me to a joke I read a few months ago about God giving a dying woman another chance to live. She is so excited that she prays to God, goes to a parlour and gets a whole makeover done. She steps out of the parlour, gets hit by a bus and meets God in heaven. She rants and raves and asks God why he had got her killed after giving her a second chance and God replies “MY CHILD! I didn’t know it was you. You see, I didn’t recognise you under all that make-up!!!!”
So let’s not get preachy! LIVE YOUNG LIVE FREE is all that I want to say!
All you need to do when you feel low is go through Bryan Adam’s song and make it your personal motivational theme song. Life is God’s gift to you and me. Don’t waste another single second growing OLD! Just keep getting younger!!!!!
Wanna be young the rest of my life
Never say no try anything twice
‘Til the angels come and ask me to fly
Gonna be eighteen ’til I die eighteen ’til I die
Can’t live forever that’s wishful thinkin’
Whoever said that must of bin’ drinkin’
Don’t wanna grow up I don’t see why
I couldn’t care less if time flies by
Eighteen ’til I die gonna be eighteen ’til I die
Ya it sure feels good to be alive
Someday I’ll be eighteen goin’ on fifty-five, eighteen ’til I die
Anyway I just wanna say
Why bother with what happened yesterday
It’s not my style I live for the minute
If ya wanna stay young get both feet in it, eighteen ’til I die
A little bit of this a little bit of that
Little bit of everything gotta get on track
It’s not how ya look, it’s what ya feel inside.
Cheers to Love, Life and Happiness!!!!
Rachitha P. Cabral
Assistant Professor
Department of English
School of Social Work, Roshni Nilaya
Mangalore