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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
April 19, 2014
How easily youth can flee without even the courtesy of a farewell, such bad manners.
It just happens. An incident, a word, some event in your life and you know you have peaked and are now hurtling down the ladder as you go up in age. It hits you that you will never be young again.
Think young, yes, but be young, no. For women, it could be the little spray of crow’s feet around the eyes, that little sag under the jaw, the surrender to spectacles.
For men, the loss of a job and the realization that you now have to work for those younger than you, the loss of a tennis match to a green kid who larrups you all over the court, perhaps the fact that you need the blood pressure pills or the diet control edict from the doctor. For either, the morning after the night before and the low energy levels suggesting you can’t hack it anymore.
Something small and insignificant in itself, but a three-dimensional signpost to the fact that youth has scarpered without even the courtesy of a warning that it was packing and the taxi was waiting.
It happened with me at a dinner where this perfectly lovely lady was the pre-dinner target of my riveting charm. It was ticking over, the gleam in the eye was pleasantly wicked and the words were coming cute and clever and so wonderfully glib like they sometimes do.
My wife was watching with that bored ho hum, same old stuff expression that wives have when their husbands are enjoying themselves with an appreciative audience. It is moving along swimmingly when suddenly this young lady says, but, uncle, you are so funny... I look around, expecting to see some old codger trying to cut into our conversation. There is no one. I raise my eyebrows in enquiry. Whom did you call ‘uncle’, I say, looking about me to see who else is standing by.
You, she says, my parents taught me to respect all elderly people, they say good manners are essential. I can suggest many things her parents could do with their concept of good manners but I am so busy picking up the shattered shards of my ego: don’t call me uncle, I hiss, I am not yet anywhere near the uncle level, you have me mixed up with someone else. No, she says, all my parents’ friends are uncles and aunties.
I flinch for a second time, hoping no one has heard but find my charm has crash-landed on one wing and lies there all crumpled and wrecked. Look at the bright side, I say, at least no one heard.
When we get home I look at my-self in the mirror. Certainly not the uncle type, silly girl, how could she refer to me in that way, why I haven’t even entered my prime yet. I examine the area around my eyes, nothing, no sag, not even a hint of one, no one ever called me ‘uncle’ before, I don’t even have that much grey hair, I look just post teen. The girls are home. Hi, says Senior, why is Pops making funny faces in the mirror?
What’s with the eyes, says Junior, something gone into them.
Your father is shattered, says my wife, a pretty young lady called him ‘uncle’.
You heard, I say, abs mortified, you heard, and you didn’t say a word all this time, how could you?
Everyone heard, she says, and you might as well get used to it, that’s all you are going to get in the future.
Was he trying to be charming, says Senior.
Telling his little anecdotes, says Junior.
Being worldly and wicked, says Senior. That’s right, says my wife, and then she said ‘but, uncle’, you should have seen your father’s face.
Poor thing, says Senior, that must have hurt, Mom stop laughing, he’s really blown out or the water.
You don’t look like an uncle, says Junior, more like a sort of semi uncle type.
That’ll make him feel better, for sure, says Senior, can’t you see he’s in shock.
Happens to the best, of us, says my wife, you just have to age with grace. Mom, says Senior, go easy on him, this is painful revelation time, the man’s coming to terms with reality. Was she pretty, says Junior?
Who?
The girl who called him ‘uncle’, was she pretty.
Yes. Poor guy, no wonder he’s stricken.
That night, as I lie in bed, reading about signs of approaching age in an article on the subject the girls give me an envelope. There’s a card inside. It reads, don’t worry, we are your pretty girls and we’ll love you even when you’re sixty-four!!! Guess, that’s a young thought… even as I hurtle towards that number.
Uncle, indeed!!!!
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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