This Above all
Laugh away the burden of age
KHUSHWANT SINGH

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. News doesn’t cheer you up. Every morning after I have finished reading half-a-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 people’s foibles as well as your own. You will find lots of things about people which are comic, funny and will provoke 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 one of them gently: "Beta, itne gussey kyon hote ho (Son, why are you so angry)?
Go on to politicians who have made it 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, rush towards the well of the House, 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 the US called them, "headless chickens".

Address them calmly over your TV and say: "Bhai sahib, kyon itney khafa ho gaye (Brother, why are you so angry)?" The Ambassador apologised for calling them headless chickens. It would have been appropriate if he had used the word brainless instead of headless or chicken brained. That is what Speaker Som Nath Chatterjee often indicates when he orders some of them out of the House. "You make yourselves a laughing stock. For that many thanks".

Younger people use many offensive epithets for oldies of my age: old fogeys, codgers, fuddy-duddies, old geysers`85 and much more. I don’t give a damn. I count myself among the OPALS (Old Persons with Active Lifestyles).

An American says: ’’Now that we have passed the earnestness of youth, we are convinced that two things are absolutely essential in order to face the adventure of growing old — a healthy spontaneity and a quick, robust sense of humour. In fact, humour can be a sign of spiritual well-being".

Bent double

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 torso 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 qamar jhukai hooey (I lost my youth and I did not realise that was my trouble. It is my youth I keep looking for with my body bent double).

The quest for the lost youth can be very frustrating—-once gone, it is gone forever. Old people try to act young end up making fools of themselves. When they make passes at girls of the age of their grand-daughters, they are likely to be reminded of their age by being called dadaji or nanaji. You cannot prevent the body from decaying; but you can slow down the pace of decay by watching your diet, taking gentle exercising and tonics. There is no reason why you should not be able to live to up to100 in reasonably good health.
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 around you. The most important thing to develop your mind and personality is to question the validity of everything 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. I find it difficult to keep up a meaningful dialogue with religious people and tend to dismiss them as mentally retarded.

Wild drummer

(Courtesy G.C. Bhandari)

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