>> Tryst with beauty <<

Admin Posts : 1961 Join date : 2012-01-26

Tryst with beauty

Whenever I hear Bryan Adams' song, ‘I want to be 18 till I die...' my memory flies back to the time when I wanted to be 18 at 18, not look one day older or younger. and when looks mattered very much. When looks were the only ones which mattered, without any warning, one fine morning, my pre-molar fell off and I rushed to the dentist in panic. After taking an X-ray he seriously said, "Lady, that was a milk tooth...!" Till his pronouncement, I was worried where my other teeth would follow suit. Totally relieved, I gave an account of the incident to my family members and they all said in chorus, "Yes, it must have been a milk tooth and the origin of your childish behaviour." I tried correcting them, "You mean innocent and child-like!" "No, childish! ", again a loud chorus. So, my efforts to look young and beautiful branded me 'childish'! Even so, my efforts continued. A few weeks later, I had gone to our orthopaedist for severe 'pain in the neck'. Taking an X-ray, he said, "your cervical curvature shows degeneration..." Degeneration?? The untimely climax to a glorious spurt of my youth? How can I have a milk tooth in my mouth and degenerated bones in my back? Spine-chilling!! The doctor advised me to wear a collar for some time. I was rearing to hold my head high with youthful beauty, and there I was, with a collar and a toothless grin to top it. I might not have a won a crown in a beauty pageant, but I was fitted with one, in that set of beautiful pearls, and my collar helped my head to stay on my shoulders. So passed my youthful adventure with beauty.

Years rolled by, but the itch remained, and I got a great moral boost to my ego, when, at a party, a co-guest commented on my youthful appearance. In a totally exulted state, when I told this to my family, they said, {again in a chorus}, "do you know, when people comment on how young you look, that means they had guessed your real age and wanted you to keep the good work going, in 'trying to look young'...!" "Gosh...they are all as impossible as I am" I thought exasperatedly.

Few days later, I overheard my two sons talking in their room, "we will definitely plan to go to Commercial Street on Saturday, but let us not plan with our little girl...yeah...she runs into every shop and takes so much time to decide...I can't forget that silly look on one shop keeper's face...last time..." Their grandmother intervened and said, "...that's because she doesn't know, she looks nice in anything...!" My ears begged for more of those honey-sweet words. "Hey little girl!", they greeted me and their faces were so joyful and sparkling...I felt young and beautiful, receiving that greeting from these young ones, after all, there is an age when a woman feels she has to be beautiful to be loved, and there comes an age when she has to be loved to feel beautiful...and lovearound me is just superb...and I felt really beautiful...for the first time...

» She Walks In Beauty ~~~