Ranjona Banerji | May Your Eyelashes Remain Safe In 2026!

What’s the most fun of growing older? It occurred to my younger sister and me, just this morning, before I started writing this, that in our family, we are the older generation. That if anyone younger wants to know anything about the immediate family, they have to come to us. It’s a terrifying thought, to be honest. You never really train to become the repository of personal history and suddenly, you may well be that aunt people ask.

One of my grandfathers used to say the fun is that you no longer have to watch or check what you’re saying or how you behave. A form of freedom, if you will. He had a cutting tongue and a wicked sense of humour so I can’t really be certain that he ever held himself back. Maybe with his bosses.

I have now got used to the Internet or more correctly, social media’s ideas of generational conflict. I belong to the top and therefore the most unloved category, not that I really care. And since I last probed these various generational names and differences, another 16 seem to have appeared. I can’t really keep track. None of them however appear to understand each other nor like each other so really, we’re all on the same page as far as I’m concerned. By the time we went from skibidi toilet to 6-7, it no longer had any rizz. No cap.

I can’t explain all that but the Internet will. Enjoy.

The result is that I’ve given up on trying to understand younger generations. There are some areas where we can communicate which is fine. There are others in which I am likely to upset their sensitivities, perhaps unknowingly, but I cannot absolve myself of all responsibility here. I must be at fault also. I know more about weird café coffees (or do I mean weird coffee orders at cafes?) than I do about how easily young people get upset.

I have also learnt that I am not in the groove for the things I should be concerned about. Like how I need to track my eyebrows because they’re now old eyebrows. One of my grandmothers — not the one married to the grandfather mentioned earlier — would meticulously, every day, shave off her eyebrows with half a razor blade and then draw on new ones. It was terrifying to watch as a child and the only lesson I learnt from it was not to play with razor blades. I should have concentrated on the eyebrow thing. I ought to invest in several pencils, brushes, blades and techniques to help these eyebrows along in my old age. However, given that I have that grandfather’s blood in me, I can’t really be bothered what people think. Although a couple of times a year I weep copious tears to get whatever I do have “threaded”. It’s very painful.

Where I have failed totally is on eyelashes. Apart from fishing them out of my eyes when they fall in, I let them be as long as they let me be. This has been an act of gross neglect on my part. I recently discovered that the wedding season can be disastrous for eyelashes. I attended many weddings last year but despite rigorous examination of my eyelashes, which is really difficult if you have to put on glasses to even be able to see your eyelashes but the glasses prevent you from seeing your eyelashes, I have come to the conclusion that other people’s nuptials did not upset my eyelashes.

Of course, there’s plenty of very serious stuff about getting older and some of it is really sad. The last year was one of terrible losses. So many friends, people of my generation, suddenly gone forever. Too many I know suffering from the problems and diseases that advancing years bring with them. Mortality stares you in the face more directly now. A friend from another city called and said “we better meet quickly before we also pop off”. Joking is sometimes the only way to deal with sorrow. And the fear of what is to come. I had just about reconciled myself to losing the generations above me. I hadn’t considered how time would treat my own.

What I cannot reconcile myself to is the state of the world. You see collapse everywhere. Institutions you once took for granted crumbling under the pressures of greed, incompetence and wilful destructiveness. You feel responsible, somehow. This is the legacy of your generation. This is where you failed the most. You protected little, you did not fight enough. And you leave behind a world which is struggling at too many levels.

In fact, the arrogance with which we assumed things were getting better even 20 years ago astounds me today. Did we not read a single signal properly? Did we really think that the hint of good times was real? How did we miss the mists of resentment and hatred that were gathering around us?

And look at where we are today. World over, it seems to be the same story. Violence being used as the first response when it should be the last resort. Impending doom whether natural or manmade lurks as a shadow everywhere. Incompetent and bloodthirsty leaders breaking all rules of civilisation to appease their angry supporters. Money collecting in the hands of the richest, squeezing the rest…

O dear. I started off trying to look for joy and look at the rabbit hole I’ve fallen into and taken you with me. Not quite the greatest start to the new year. But if we’re lucky and I’m wrong, then maybe some glimmers of hope will appear. Maybe it’s all sound and fury signifying nothing. A tale told by an idiot.

On which note, Happy New Year! May your eyelashes always be safe!