Women, it is said, begin to feel invisible in their early 50s, and men in their 60s (awarded a whole decade more of visibility by the world at large, not surprisingly).
When this cloak of invisibility begins to descend on you quite imperceptibly, in the beginning it is really quite liberating. Mothers and many an aunt have at some time or the other said happily, and without any complaint or wistfulness in their tone: ‘Kon baghtay, mela’ (Who-the-heck is watching us now), when anyone remarks on their diminished wardrobe, wearing unmatched things, or generally letting go of various other accoutrements and markers of refinement.
Some of us are pleasantly surprised or sobered when we arrive at this benchmark of ageing ourselves. It’s not just the so-called male gaze that you are rid of with your new-found invisibility. For a man or a woman, it is the overall freedom from other people’s expectations of you that comes with it. You are now not to be counted to always jump into the breach, to stand up and be counted, for every contingency.
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Not everyone is happy with this development. A 70-year-old friend was quite put out when she was kindly and firmly told she could not and must not stay overnight with a post-op friend in hospital. There are enough younger, fitter, people to do nights, she was told.
It’s important to not take this as a stamp and seal of being declared an ‘irrelevant person’, but just a sign that the ill person is well-blessed with the person-power required for a hospital stay. The indication from younger people is that you have done enough; you need to take it easy. And be there for your ill friend in other ways.
I experienced another interesting play of the visible-invisible while speaking to a young classical musician after his performance. About his audience, he was not very happy that there were few people. When I said that for a weekday evening, there was a good turn out, he added, yes of course there were plenty of ‘white heads’ (read: elderly listeners), but no younger people.
I was amused by this invisibility conferred on us ‘white heads’. When I said, in our defence, that we had seasoned ears, and that surely we brought more to a recital than our grey hair, he did look visibly sheepish. And admitted: “Yes, you people come to listen to us newbies, though you have heard all the greats of the last century.” Thereby carbon-dating us yet again, but giving us a little more visibility and dimension in his head than a mere sea of ‘white heads’.
Interestingly, while we may become invisible in our 50s, we do become visible to some once again when we actually opt to go grey. Now advertisers are marketing a bunch of goods and services right at us. And in hoardings, reels, ads selling vacations, financial instruments, even medical services and assisted living homes, we have become visibly grey-glam, and are being portrayed and pursued most assiduously. They can see us alright. As those with needs and priorities who fit right in with what’s on sale. The word ‘seniors’ stops being used in a patronising way and is used in a more wooing manner!
“I am often tempted to inform young Indian comedians, in multisyllabic four-letter words in three different languages, that they sure as heck did not invent sex or cussing.”
Patronising reminds me, young Indian stand-up comedians tend to view ‘white heads’ in their audience with a peculiar kind of anxious politeness, as if we have been brought in on stretchers. They will also make completely misplaced half-apologies before beginning, for using any sexual innuendo and swear words in front of us. Priming us to hear things they imagine we have never heard before. I am often tempted to inform them in colourful multisyllabic four-letter words in three different languages, that they sure as heck did not invent sex or cussing, and we have not veered into their gig by mistake expecting to watch Tom and Jerry. Or the shorter version: Get over yourself. A young friend once, after one such a show, pulled aside the main performer who she knew, and informed him that various seniors in the audience would out-cuss him hands down and without turning a grey hair.
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Fiction publishers in India too need to wear those magic glasses that will render the ageing population visible as well as sentient to them. While ‘Hen Lit’ is big in the western world, it is almost non-existent here. How have they not figured that older people have better reading habits, are willing to spend on books, and would love to meet characters who deal with the vicissitudes of long-lived lives?
There is a sharp contrast in our visibility-invisibility as pedestrians in urban India and outside of it. In the western world, in east Europe, in Ghana even, traffic comes to a willing stand-still and you are waved on, were you to show your intention to cross the road, light or no light. In India you can have your toes or heels brushed by the woosh of a vehicle, sometimes even if the light is green-man-walking.
However, we are clearly visible to each other, us seniors on the road. Driving our vehicles, we will pause to let one of our tribe take that difficult U-turn, cross the road at their own pace, and not lean on the horn as soon as the light turns green for us. Rendering each other visible with an ‘I see you’.
Gouri Dange is a writer, counsellor, and people-watcher with long-running columns and eight books of fiction and non-fiction.
