I'm trying to setup Org indent mode for cleaner view but the preceding
starts show up dimmed in grey color. How do I make them totally invisible?

I've put this at the top of the .emacs:

(setq org-startup-indented t)
(setq org-indent-mode t)

and running emacs version 24.3.1 and org version 8.2.5 from the
command-line.