When I saw my much younger friend Jayshree’s new profile pictures some weeks ago, my eyes widened in surprise and delight. She’d cut her long hair into a stylish pixie. The surprise and change, for me, was the plush apostrophe of grey hair swirling alongside her face. Until that moment I hadn’t even realised she coloured her hair. Jayshree is beautiful, but to be honest, I hadn’t realised quite how beautiful till she showed herself this way.

There was much lockdown talk about how women might never go back to wearing bras—and for a while it had seemed likely. But, the first day back in office, my friend S called to complain that she was, after all, back in hers, like most others were. The big change I noticed in the lockdown, was how many people—mostly women—were letting their greys out.