They live a street away from each other. They could all qualify for an old age home. With the eldest closing ninety, and the youngest pushing 72, their meetings resemble a senior citizens’ conclave raring to set the world right. They challenge their declining years.

The “infant” who has just retired from a fulltime job, is ready to volunteer his services to a hospital. Editing a journal and publishing articles are only by the way, while his eldest sibling is busy tinkering with electronic equipment.

His vision may have dimmed and hearing impaired. But, this octogenerian’s enthusiasm is boundless when it comes to sound systems – or film appreciation. Now, here’s the unbeatable 84-year-old who can arrange an eye donation with the same ease as taking a wounded bird or animal to the vet.

This amazing senior, whose talents lie hidden under a careless exterior, has embarked on a voluminous family biography.  

The female members of this group are no less incredible. The 90-year-old is a winner all the way. She was a war baby who came into a world that was reeling under machine guns and air raids in the year 1917 when the First World War was coming to an end.

I believe her mother named her after the heroine in a short story by Tolstoy. Here is one superb achiever whose education stopped at age 15, but who still travelled and wrote tirelessly. 

The next-in-line, an indefatigable chair bound optimist beats the sleepless nights by penning her thoughts on paper, surrounded by her sketches and paintings. You will find the next sibling, who had many firsts to her credit in academics, busy with a music system and book now – studying ragas and thaalas! 

When the leader of this lovely group quietly walked into the sunset last week, the siblings absorbed the loss silently until one of them broke the silence with: “Now we cannot tell people any more that we are seven.”