Going silver

Anuradha started getting silver strands when she was barely 30. Here’s a funny and honest account of how she coped, in her own words.

The first strands of gray appeared when I was barely 30. They were located somewhere off the back of my head and could barely be seen unless you were my mother who tried to scrutinize every visible inch of her ‘still unmarried’ and almost 30-year-old daughter for signs of ageing. One look at my graying strands and she had concocted an evil-looking dark amla potion that was supposed to be massaged into my tresses to restore them to their raven beauty. As far as ma was concerned, my life was doomed. Here I was, almost 30, with no suitor on the horizon and steadfastly refusing all the ‘eligible bachelors’ ma and my mausis (aunts) kept throwing at me. To add to the already worsening situation, I had white hair. As one mausi kindly put it, it was a good thing I was gori (fair) or else they would have stopped looking years ago.

So what about me? To tell you the truth, I did not bother myself much when the first gray strands appeared. In fact I forgot all about them until a few months later when I visited the beauty parlour for my twice yearly haircut and the lady there commented that I could use a dye to cover the grays. To my horror when I think about it these days, I agreed!

You see, while I truly did not despair over my still unmarried status like my mother and her clan did, I had recently met someone rather polished and interesting who mercilessly enough had a head full of jet black hair. So suddenly I started to panic. What if he thought I was older than I claimed? The old talk of being over the hill and on the shelf suddenly came to haunt me and I went down the dye way. Now I am talking of the late 80s when brands like L’Oreal and Wella were unheard of here. We were also rather naively unaware of ammonia and other chemicals when it came to cosmetics and make up.

So a few years down the line, when I was happily married to the gentleman mentioned above, I started noticing that my hair had gone grayer than usual and the span between dyeing it was reducing. Just like I had decided to go down the dye route I decided to get off it.

It meant a lot of changes. First of all, it meant getting used to a head full of stark white strands and comments about my age (which was still on the right side of 45) but a supportive husband and some friends saw me through the time that I needed to get comfortable with my new look. However, the acceptance on my own part took years to come. I did get tempted to dye my hair black very often but I had a husband who was and still is, a great believer in all things natural and I decided to follow the same mantra for his sake.

It did help that I worked in advertising, where even in the 80s and early 90s, anything offbeat was looked at a little more kindly than it would have been, had I been, say in a bank or teaching in a school. I did get remarks that I had started looking old (said with a lot of pity) and the occasional question about whether my husband liked it. I dealt with them in different ways, depending on how my mood was. Initially I used to be defensive, explaining in great detail why I took the decision to stop dyeing my hair; sometimes, more so when confronted by beautiful women who were older but looked rather young thanks to their black tresses, I would wonder if I did the right thing. And then there were times when I basked in a new-found confidence, like the time when a very suave colleague of my husband and his wife commented that I stood out in the crowd, thanks to my hair, beautifully.

It had several other advantages too. The bhajiwalas (vegetable sellers) near our building suddenly started giving me more respect. I only had to ignore their ‘haan maaji’ while I shamelessly bargained for the best. At work, newcomers gave me the respect accorded to white haired people in India. And my mother? she was so happy I finally had a husband that she would have been indifferent had I even gone the Persis Khambatta* way.

Today, in my mid-fifties, I have shoulder length hair. I am very comfortable with my hair, which incidentally is all white or as I prefer to call it, silver.

 * Persis Khambatta: Indian actress who went bald while quite young.