The one redeeming feature of ageing is it gives you more time to enrich your mind.
As you get old, there is little left to laugh about. Nothing seems to work properly. You can’t read much, TV screen looks blurred. You need hearing aids, ask people to speak loudly so that you can hear what they are saying.
Your feet are unsteady and you are scared of falling down and breaking your hip bone. You have to go on a diet of bland food because everything you relished in your younger days no longer agrees with you.
You lose your independence and become a dependant: a burden on your family. Under such circumstances laughter fights a losing battle.
The news don’t cheer you up. Every morning after I have finished reading half-dozen papers I subscribe to, I recall T N Seshan’s answer to my question: “Seshan don’t you ever laugh?” He growled “What is there to laugh about!”
Indeed is there anything left to laugh about? The answer is “Yes, if you have a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at other peoples’ foibles as well as yourself. You will find lots of things about people which are comic, funny and will provoke belly-fulls of laughter. Try it out; it will be good for your health.”
Start with would-be politicians. They lead processions, yell slogans with their mouths wide open, wave fists or swords in the air. Ask them gently sotto voce; “Beta! itna qussa kyon kartey ho – son, why are you so angry?
Go on to politicians who have made good and become Members of Vidhan Sabhas, Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha. Switch on your TV at Question-Hour and watch the Tamasha: see how they go at each other, swarm down the well of the Houses of Legislatures, force Speakers to adjourn proceedings day after day.
Don’t lose your cool and shout back “you fellows are wasting public money, mine and my neighbours.” Let the media do that. Don’t even repeat what our Ambassador in America called them, “headless chickens”. Address them calmly over your TV screen and say “Bhai Sahib, kyon itney khafaa ho gaye - brother why are you so angry?” The Ambassador apologised for calling them “headless chickens”.
Younger people use many offensive epithets for oldies of my age: old fogeys, codgers, old farts, fuddy-duddies, old geysers – and much else. I don’t give a damn. I count myself among OPALS (Old persons with active lifestyles).
Double with age
I am an old man but not yet bent double with age. I have always had a little stoop; it is no worse than when I was a young man. I know many men and women much younger than me who bend their torsos while walking as if they were looking for something they had dropped on the ground. They remind me of lines of an Urdu poet whose name I cannot recall:
Jawanee jaatee rahee
aur hamein pataa bhee na chalaa;
issee ko dhoondh rahey hain
oamar jhukai hooey
(I lost my youth I did not realise that was my trouble. It is my youth I keep looking for, with my body bent double.)
The quest for lost youth can be very frustrating: once gone, it is gone for ever. Old people who try to act young end up making fools of themselves. When they make passes at girls of their granddaughter’s age, they are likely to be reminded of their age by being called Dadaji or Nanaji.
The one redeeming feature of ageing is it gives you more time to enrich your mind. It need not be limited to reading books and journals; it can, and should, extend to watching natural phenomenon, human behaviour - and that kind of thing.
It will develop new facets of your personality and people, old and young, will flock round you.
The most important thing to develop your mind and personality is to question the validity of every thing taken for granted and formulate your own answers. That is why I reject blind faith and religious beliefs; they dampen the spirit of enquiry and prevent a person from developing mentally.
By George!
Ever since Fernandes ceased to be Defence Minister
He became a noisy drummer!
Being in the wilderness for long
From insomnia did he suffer.
Frustration is a deadly disease
It turns an intelligent person into a duffer
How sad! in a fit of frenzy
This political turncoat called PM a Bluffer!
