The joys and killjoys of growing old!

Dear Cheeniya Sir,

Like you, I am also beginning to enjoy my old age. I noticed that every time, I go to dye and cut my hair, the lady who cuts my hair tells me, after my hair cut I look at least 20 years younger, just to make me feel happy. It is always enjoyable to hear such words. I have so many new things to learn from a brand new generation about things that I would have never known. They are willing to listen me talking about the war on terror and compare them with cold war fought against USSR to liberate Afghanistan, war against Yugoslavia, war against Iraq to liberate Kuwait and so on. It is fun to watch the guys in the restaurant struggling to determine whether to give senior discount or not and finally deciding to give a discount anyway.

The age is only for my body as I find it hard now to run 2-3 miles a day that I used to run towards Film Institute in Adyar from Latice Bridge Road when the traffic was not all that bad to walking around my subdivision at a slow pace. I remain young in my mind. The main reason for that is because I figured out that most of what I learned in my life are from people who are younger than me. I learned to spend more time with them with a keen interest to listen. If I am in the right environment and keep my energy high, my mind believes I am young.

Viswa

 

And of course wear jean and round neck t-shirt, to match your younger mind, Cheeniya Sir. Very funny to read. So, gearing up to one more:

I didn't know what happened to me
After I saw the mirror this morning.
My spouse was looking deep in to me
When I was lost, deep in mourning.

"What happened? Why are you sad?",
She started so gently at first.
I pointed the hairs that had gone bad,
Paling out, looking white at best.

"I never thought I would get these,
I am still very much young!"
I said while she smiled to tease
Me and started to sing.

That song made me wilder then,
As it was about an old man.
As if it wasn't enough, she then
Said that I should learn,

To pay more attention from first,
As she'd seen them before.
As always she delivered the best
And I kept quiet, like before.

"Perhaps growing old is better
And the best is yet to come!"
I said this a few days later.
She offered her thoughts some.

"When you can't avoid something
Just gracefully accept it,
Like I did in marrying,
You", she said, I had a fit.

 

Hah haha ha ! That was a cute one ! I suspect that you wrote this in a right royal pique , right after some 'markandeyani " with henna-ed Bala-Narai and botoxed-out crow's feet , called you Uncle . Else, why the brave eschewal of Senior Citizen concessions , just to make a point ?( a point which only the faceless Railway reservation staff may note while aunties merrily continue with their mode of addressing you.)

My grandmother always said the best time of her life was when she got " old ". She dint have other oldies preaching her on how to conduct herself ( few, if any, were left to do that anyway), she dint have to bother about making an impression on anyone by dressing according to the dictates of the day, she had the luxury of being automatically given the best seats and the first serving of food ; was excused from sundry chores ( though she was fit as an ox). And there was the great thrill of having people coming up to her for advise on this and that, believing her to be the repository of all knowledge ( whereas, till not too long ago, people tended to silence her with, 'you dont know anything, keep quiet'). All her "faux-pas" ( most of them intentional) were instantaneously forgiven on the ground of memory-loss, senility , debility etc. Oh yes, Grandma had a ball, being young in mind till the end ! I'm sure she would have got ideas into her head had she lived long enough to read about Smt. Omkari Panwar, the 70 year old lady who gave birth to twins !