The sweet old days for a man in his forties

 To have multani mitti (Fullers Earth or the Indian Healing Clay) for washing your hair means to belong to the older generation. The cosmopolitan world is beyond the reach of plain old earth. While growing up in the village, we had the singular option of washing and rubbing our hair clean with multani mitti. Now the dermatologists are approving the superb qualities of the good old multani mitti involving cooling, skin nourishing and beautifying. The desi shampoo absorbs oil and dirt. The natural cleanser is all goody-goody news for the scalp, especially the oily ones. It hydrates, prevents bacterial growth, inhibits dandruff, and removes toxic chemicals from the skin as a purifying agent. Now I realize how much science is involved in our age-old home remedies and concoctions. While I write this, I can feel Mother’s strong peasant woman’s hands giving a vigorous but considerate scrub to my scalp during childhood. But now to use multani mitti means simply to be out of fashion.