Kishore Singh: The vagaries of advancing age

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Bear with me and spend a moment studying the illustration that accompanies this column. What do you see? Not Brad Pitt, I agree "" I have no such vanities "" but an old man? A senior citizen?

Not long ago, I had been prompted by those in a queue with me ahead of the property tax counter to walk away and into an adjoining room to process my paperwork and pay my taxes. I refused, even though the queue seemed for most part to consist of drivers and peons.

Time passed, the queue moved only slightly, and I wished I could garner the courage to accept the option offered "" but what if I was sent back by a clerk with an admonition not to break the queue? I clung resolutely to my place till a lout behind me shouted, "Go on, it's all right, senior citizens are excused from having to queue up."

I'm ashamed to say that day I did exercise the option to wrap up my paperwork in a jiffy, but it did make me wonder whether I should consider dyeing my hair. "Not at all," said a cousin, with whom I shared my sorry tale, "anyone can see you're a fine young man."

I clung to that, time passed, and but for a few colleagues cruelly reminding me of the markings of passing years, I ceased to be a "senior citizen". But life has ways of tripping you up when you least expect it.

On a holiday this month with the family, we were waiting to take our place in a jacuzzi occupied by three young men who seemed to be having a conversation entirely devoted to who was the fairest among them. Swaddled in robes, we decided to order lunch while we waited our turn, as the trio continued to babble on.

Our pizzas arrived, a bottle of beer was opened. My son disappeared somewhere with a cell phone, leaving my wife, my daughter and me to proceed with our feast.

I must confess that without my glasses I'm pretty much blind, though there's nothing wrong with my hearing. And what I was hearing now didn't seem very nice. "Why is that oldie staring at us?" asked one of the young men in the jacuzzi.

"You would too," chortled another, "if you had two daughters with you." This was accompanied by a bout of raucous laughter.

Through it all, I sat gazing benignly at the trees just beyond the sun deck on which we were sitting, wondering who the old man was who was the butt of their jokes. Some while later, the third one said, "Oye, only one of them is his daughter, the fat one is his wife." There was some more laughing and splashing, till at last they plodded out, walking by close enough for me to see them elbowing each other and giggling.

Oh well, boys will be boys, I said to myself, reaching for my glasses. Having put them on and restored vision once again, I looked around to see who else was on the deck, but could spot no other guest. The deck was empty of all other human presence but our little group. That's when the message sank in: I was the "oldie", and the mirth had been directed at us.

I would have followed the three yobs to give them a piece of my mind but, of course, they had already disappeared. Besides, what would I have said to them: "Hey buddy, don't be fooled by my hair, I'm not actually old!" "It's all right," said my wife, "they called me fat too, and I don't mind too much."

That may be, but I'm wondering if it's the right time to experiment with a wig after all.