March backwards in Time!

Cheeniya · Apr 14, 2007

Dear Manju
I have nothing against the cycle and in fact I am all for it! From the Universe to ordinary mortals like us, everything is in a rotary motion!
All I meant was why should this cycle be condensed within 60 or 70 years. By slowing down our aging process drastically, each stage of the cycle can be doubled or even treble. Is not Markandeya for ever 16?
Think of what good things can come by this process. Ramanujam would have solved all his riddles and not made his illustrious successors continue to toil at them. Einstein would have found a way to reach the distant planet overnight.
I am not against acting in conformity with the phase of the cycle at which we are placed. All I suggested was that we could reduce the speed of the cycle!
sri

Cheeniya · Apr 14, 2007

Dear Kamla
Is my explanation to Manju a sign of senility already?
Sri

iyerviji · Dec 15, 2009

Dear Cheeniya Sir

Enjoyed reading your thought provoking article. I am also young at heart though old by age. I feel if you always have a smiling face and enjoy life you always look young. I dont like to sit and cry but enjoy life. I like to be called old.

Regards
viji

Cheeniya · Dec 15, 2009

Dear Viji
I fully endorse your view! When we talk of age, we just refer to the number of years a person has spent on this planet. According to me, it has no relevance at all to the role he may be playing at any given station of life. Age is verily a matter of attitude. Look at what Mother Teresa could accomplish even as she was fading out! What is important is not how old we are but how old we feel.
Sri

Padmini · Dec 16, 2009

Dear cheeniya sir,
Thanks to Viji, for reviving your masterpiece
now. Your description about " going round the tress with young heroines
reminded me of our M. G.R.With his costumes and wig he was never tired of singing duets with young girls !!!And now our Rajini, who never gets tired of singing with Shreya or tamanna!!!
[FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.[/FONT] Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.I think we can ( sorry to include you also in the list) be proud for that matter.As [FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]Douglas MacArthur says,"[/FONT]<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td width="10">
</td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> </td></tr></tbody></table> In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage - so long are you young. When the wires are all down and our heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown ol[FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]d.[/FONT]The answer to old age is to keep one's mind busy and to go on with one's life as if it were interminable.
with love
pad

[FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]
[/FONT][FONT=georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif]
[/FONT]

Cheeniya · Dec 16, 2009

Dear Padmini

Thanks a lot for embellishing an old and forgotten thread of mine with such profound and valuable thoughts. I really loved that quote of Douglas MacArthur-
In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage - so long are you young. When the wires are all down and our heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old..

This is the very fundamental of aging process. Body's reaction to what goes on in the mind is very well documented. Persistent ugly thoughts make one unbelievably ugly. But beautiful thoughts impart an ethereal beauty till our dying day. How true it is to say that 'Agathin Azhaghu Mugathil teriyum'!
Sri

ojaantrik · Dec 19, 2009

Dear Sri:

I think I understood what you have said. I subscribe to every syllable of wisdom in this post and I daresay you are aware of this too. In other words, as far as the topic of your discussion is concerned, we share the same view.

Yet, I would possibly have said -- let's march forward with time, instead of backwards. Both mean the same thing I guess, only what you call backwards, I prefer to describe as forward. Well may be, not exactly sure. Perhaps I don't want to call it 'backwards' because the time traveller in Wells' novel never came back from the past. But he did come back from the future! I want you to keep coming back! I know you will of course. In fact it's I who's the lone wanderer, lost in the wilderness.

Indeed, the mind is the greatest gift of God and I have decided to believe that its power is unbounded. If one has kept his mind active, I am sure he cannot develop the alzheimer's problem. I have seen people, lots of them, who stop learning at the age of 20, and I have seen those who don't stop learning even at 90!

Paul Samuelson, one of the greatest economists of the twentieth (and twenty-first) century, died early this week at the age of 94. He was writing even a year or two ago. If he stopped writing economics during the last two years of his life, I am sure that he was bored with it and was engaged in other productive work.

I simply cannot understand the age excuse for refusing to learn new technology! At least I cannot discontinue being interested in new inventions, or even old ones that I had not found the time to pick up earlier in life. My son sometimes makes fun of me for drownig in so many interests even at this stage of my life. For me, it's just fun. Learning is great fun, great fun so long as one learns for the love of learning and not for ulterior motives. I have even come across young researchers showing their displeasure when I tried to speak to them about their work in their language. From their point of view, I am supposed to be old and useless!

One of the greatest of modern Bengali poets was Jibananda Das. An oft quoted poem of his talks about a young person who has committed suicide and is lying in the morgue. The subject of the poem might sound morbid. Yet the poem is dedicated entirely to life, to hope. He questions in the end a person's desire to take his own life, since there is no end to the enjoyment life can provide.

An old female owl symbolizes age in the poem. And he ends the poem thus:

Yet each night I am amazed to find,
The blind, wrinkled owl arriving on the branch of the fig tree,
Rolling its eyes and saying, 'The flood waters have washed away the senile moon, have they?
How wonderful!
It's time then to catch a rat or two' --
Profound grandmother dear, still wonderful?
I too shall grow as old as you -- I will banish
The ancient moon to the flood waters of Kalidaha;
And then depart we shall, the two of us, after emptying out
The Endless cellars of Life.

(This is a quick translation and, despite the revision, pretty unimpressive. But it makes the point and fortunately copyright rules don't apply I think to such excerpts. Or else, I wouldn't have put it up this way.)

Life's cellars are truly endless. Even on a moonless night, even when surrounded by flood waters.

Loved your post.

oj

Cheeniya · Dec 20, 2009

My dear oj
It is incredible indeed that you are an alchemist who can turn the mere chaff of my rambling into grains of gold. It is awesome that you establish with ease that backward and forward are just relative when it relates to Time. I tend to agree with you there. In fact, I have a great respect for the Sufi concept of ‘Eternal Now’ and I have even discussed it in the Religious Forum a few times. Sufis believe that man is not only a body and a psyche but a spirit as well. The body is always in time, the spirit is always timeless and the psyche is an amphibious creature compelled by the laws of man’s being to associate itself to some extent with the body but capable, if it so desires, of being identified with the spirit and consequently with the Divine Ground. The classic Sufi statement ‘At one time I am Eternal and at another time I am in Time’ merely reflects the orientation of the psyche with the spirit or the body.

The Sufi scholar Jalal-uddin Rumi hits the nail on its head when he says:
Past and Future veil God from our sight;
Burn up both of them with fire. How long
Wilt thou be partitioned by these segments, like a reed?
So long as a reed is partitioned, it is not privy to secrets,
Nor is it vocal in response to lip and breathing!

It is interesting that the celebrated work of Dr.Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind is an extension of this Sufi Thought and he calls it a Quantum Alternative to Aging Process.

Jibananda Das’ poem is a profound gem. I have one more reason to be proud to retain an Owl as my Avatar! The words
‘And then depart we shall, the two of us, after emptying out
The Endless cellars of Life.’
make me speechless. Thanks a lot for the translation.

I reiterate what I have always been saying about you, oj. You are a priceless gem and we need you badly and desperately!
Sri

Tubelight · Jan 17, 2010

This is a nice one. I wish my mother would start "Thinking" young ! She seems to think she has to act her physical age in order to look dignified ! But when her reserve slips a bit, I can make out that she is still a young girl at heart, who is putting on a mask for society's sake !
I hope I don't follow her in this when my time for "senior citizenship"comes !

Cheeniya · Jan 17, 2010

Dear (Tube)light
A hearty welcome to my Ramblings. If you haven't experienced how senility affects the flow of thoughts as a person gets older, this is your chance! But after reading your responses to three of my posts in a row, I would say that the ID you have chosen for yourself is hardly appropriate. You are not a tubelight but a light that instantly illuminates everything in its circle! Your language is just impeccable and your expressions bring out your thoughts neatly.

Many people who are getting grayer seem to think that it should have a bearing on their actions and I heartily disagree with them! It makes more sense to follow the dictates of the heart than the colour of the hair!
Sri