Last of the Flawed Generation!

Our trip to Australia last summer, recent visits to my son’s new school (which is much more densely populated) and our holiday to Bombay in winter, opened my eyes to a new aspect of modern life. Everywhere I turned I saw perfect looking kids. From infants in prams, to children going to school, to teenagers lounging around, they all looked good.

Modern day kids are just so much better groomed and presentable than we ever were. They are all so perfectly coiffed and dandily dressed (there is effort and serious money even on the raggedy look). Most of them have the perfect smile, shining hair and uniform good looks.

 

When I contrast that with what I see when I look in the mirror - I realise that we are the last of the flawed generation. Our parents did not make the same investments into our faces as we do for our kids, and we ourselves were definitely not too bothered about our bodies. And because as kids we did not have this huge emphasis on our looks, even today we try to get by with the minimum of fuss. There are some basics that we can do to help ourselves, like wearing decently fit-out clothes, exercise, spend a bit more on decent haircuts etc. - but we want to defy the world and current convention.

Last week at the local supermarket, there was a competition wherein you got your picture taken and they transposed it onto a digital magazine cover. If your picture eventually gets selected (for whatever), you get a prize. Anyway, just for the heck of it, my daughter, my wife and I agreed to pose for the camera. It was an open booth with a touch screen and after each person’s snapshot was taken we had to input our respective email address, to which then the picture is emailed. I got mine the next day and as my mug flashed up on screen; my first thought was that I had been standing too close to the lens.

Further scrutiny bared the reason for my aversion to posing in front of a camera. Up close and personal, my entire face looked lopsided. One cheek looked rounder than the other, my nose leant more to the right and my chin was not centered. To compound that - my teeth are crooked and my eyebrows, in addition to being part of the non-aligned movement, burst out in all directions. Due to the absence of any orthodontic treatment in my youth, my entire jawline looks out of kilter – like a ship yawing in still waters!

My first justification was that it was the angle at which the photo was taken – but then pictures do not lie. On acceptance of that fact, I resorted to some positive reaffirmation – telling myself that that was the way nature intended me to look, that all of the above physical quirks added character to my personality. But somehow, that did not make me feel any better.

In short I am a male, bred and cultivated in the 1970's. And that too in India where brains mattered - not looks. In fact at that time, one actively worked on not creating too dandy an image – else one risked being taken too lightly. There was absolutely no emphasis on sartorial elegance, body shape or any other (natural or artificial) enhancements. Actually we tended to take personal grooming extremely lightly. Our only maxim was "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" and that basically came down to Lifebuoy soap for the body, Shikakai soap for the hair and Bar-soap for the soul!

 

Today – most kids get braces put, go to a hair dresser, wear coordinated designer clothes and carry the latest gizmos. Even if they are not the sportiest, most will put an effort into toning their bodies to look good. They have shoes for every occasion; my God do they have shoes! We still make do with mixing and matching the two basic colors (black and brown) with every outfit.

To this day I have a repugnance for haircuts (I have written about that before) and will procrastinate on getting one until I am at risk of looking like a hobo. When I am eventually pushed into getting one – I will frequent the cheapest barber this side of the Maginot Line. It is not that they are cheap that draws me to them - it is the speed at which they finish the cut and eject me from their chair that attracts me. The ones who cut my hair, one hair at a time, terrify me. I mean it is only hair and it will grow back anyway!!

You see, guys of my generation are the types who think -"this is the way I am - accept it!"

Our teeth are crooked, noses are bent, eyebrows askew. Our hair does not need styling, gelling or blow-drying. Glasses are cool, makes one look mature! I did get Lasik done, (but that is hardly cosmetic, is it?) and even that is looked askance by some of my mates who prefer wearing glasses which (according to them) give them charisma (quite sad isn’t it?).

Most of the males of that era consider the use of deo's and perfumes as unnecessary - much to the dismay of anyone who stands close enough to suffer the consequences, especially on a hot day. From my grandmother down to us grandkids, our last and only line of defense against body odor was Tata's Eau De Cologne, to be splashed on, either to battle a raging fever or when going somewhere posh - like the neighborhood deli.

 

We take pride in donning the cheap, the frugal and the bargained - our values do not allow us to spend money on fripperies (that indulgence is left for our spouses and our kids).

If we skip one generation further back – the generation before ours were even more 'in your face'. Their wardrobes could be completely dysfunctional, and it would not be uncommon to see styles from the 1800's still in use. There was often no sense of occasion in their choice of outfit worn. (I have known my Dad to wear his most formal clothes to the local market in the morning, reason being that having worn them the night before to a function, they anyway needed to be washed. So might as well wear them one more time.) Their teeth (at least the ones left) would evidence a lifetime of abuse, being chipped and broken. The others would have been lost in battles on the playground, or been rooted out in the dentist's chair. We will not even talk about the facial hair (nose, eyebrows and ears) growing profusely in all directions, like weeds in an untended garden.  

But then who is correct?

I think the younger generation is right. They love themselves, and as a consequence see nothing wrong with projecting that love through self-indulgence. They are more confident, clearer about what they want and more importantly what they deserve.

 

This last is important because, while growing up my generation believed that they deserved no better than what they got.

 

Earlier generations believed (no, knew) that every day was a miracle in itself, and with this gift of life felt neither the need nor the desire for anything else.