That is how I landed up cleaning my closet and bedside console.

What I had imagined would be a simple sprucing-up exercise turned into a rather uncomfortable audit of my life. Apparently, a bedside console can be more brutally honest than a mirror.

The first rack was my first reality check.

It is no longer home to the little indulgences of yesteryears. The jewellery, perfumes, cosmetics and assorted feminine paraphernalia have gradually been evicted. In their place sits what looks suspiciously like a miniature pharmacy: Vitamin D shots, Mecobalamin tablets, Keraglow-Eva, paracetamol, Pantop and assorted supplements.

I may continue to declare myself fit as a fiddle, but Lal Path Lab is not in the business of preserving anyone's illusions. My B12 and Vitamin D levels, plummeting with considerable enthusiasm, have been sending me reminders about numb nerves, aching legs and the occasional feeling that my body has joined a union and is demanding better working conditions.

Then there is Keraglow-Eva.

The tangled hair strands scattered around the room have become compelling evidence that the hair department too has begun downsizing with age. What was once an abundant mane now seems to believe in minimalism.

My stomach, which for decades behaved like an iron cauldron and tolerated everything from Kashmiri wazwan to Delhi street food, has suddenly acquired standards. One extra chilli, a little additional oil and it files a formal complaint. Pantop, therefore, has earned permanent residency.

And discreetly tucked away is the little silver strip of clonazepam-for those nights when sleep decides to play hard to get and a wink seems like a luxury item.

If the first rack documents the ageing of the body, the second is an elaborate confession by the eyes.

Spectacles everywhere.

Old ones. New ones. Near vision. Distance vision. Progressives. Different powers, different frames, different stages of optimism. My bedside console has, quite unintentionally, become an optical showroom.

There are lubricating eye drops too, sitting rather prettily in their teal bottle.

One may still apply eyeshadow, mascara and eyeliner with considerable determination, but no amount of cosmetic engineering can persuade ageing eyes to improve their performance. They may look glamorous; they still want assistance.

Then come the moisturisers and sunscreens.

Once upon a time, these would have qualified as beauty products. Today, they are survival equipment. Age has a strange way of drying out everything-skin, hair, perhaps even the confidence with which one once walked into the sun without SPF.

Beside all these sophisticated potions sits my humble Fab India lip balm, quietly doing its job without advertising anti-ageing miracles.

And then there are the Post-it notes.

Buy this. Remember that. Pick up something from the market.

Apparently, the brain too has outsourced some of its memory functions. Why burden the mind when a yellow square of paper is perfectly willing to remember the groceries?

The only resident who has remained gloriously unchanged is Alexa.

Faithful. Obedient. Non-judgmental.

Although even Alexa has witnessed my evolution.

My playlist has changed.

The ghazals and peppy numbers have not disappeared completely, but devotional music now gets the morning shift. Perhaps the soul is becoming more spiritual. Or perhaps it is simply becoming selective.

The books beside the lamp tell an even more revealing story.

The lamp is the same. The bedside table is the same. But the books have undergone a quiet revolution.

Fiction and poetry, once permanent residents, have gradually moved towards the back shelf. In their place are books on spirituality, philosophy, autobiographies and geopolitics.

I don't remember when this happened.

There was no grand declaration: Today I shall stop reading fiction and become philosophical.

It simply happened.

Slowly. Quietly. Almost imperceptibly.

And perhaps that is how ageing happens too.

Not with a drumroll.

It sneaks in through a pair of reading glasses, a bottle of moisturiser, a vitamin supplement, a Post-it note and a medicine strip. It replaces perfumes with Pantop, trinkets with tablets and late-night novels with philosophical musings.

The bedside console, therefore, has become my accidental biography.

Once it held jewellery, watches, perfumes, cosmetics and little objects of vanity. Today it holds spectacles, medicines, reminders, books and eye drops.

A rather unflattering inventory, one might say.

Or perhaps an honest one.

Because maybe this isn't simply ageing.

Maybe it is evolving.

The things that once occupied space outside are gradually making room for things that matter within. The body asks for maintenance, the mind asks for meaning, and the soul, apparently, has developed a playlist of its own.

So I am choosing not to panic.

After all, age may be creeping in, but perhaps wisdom is following close behind.

And if becoming older means becoming a little more reflective, a little more sagacious and a little less impressed by the glitter of things, perhaps it isn't such a bad trade-off.

Besides, there is always Alexa.

She still listens.

And as I looked at my increasingly pharmaceutical bedside console, I smiled and thought-

"Dil ko khush rakhne ko khayal achha hai."