New problems of old age
By P.D. Shastri

ALL want to live the longest. No one wishes to die young. Only through wishful thinking, they imagine their old age would be like their present youth without loss of strength, no coming of various illnesses and a dozen other disabilities that old age is heir to. The formula to describe it was ills, pills and bills; difficulties of health and finance.

One thing is certain. Beginning with half the century since Independence, the quality of life has progressively improved and longevity has increased at a great speed. During British rule epidemics like small-pox, plague, flu, malaria (now almost extinct) took a toll of millions of lives. And the biggest killer of that period was hunger — call it famine or starvation. A mere four years before Independence (1943) there was the Bengal famine, and million two persons died. I remember once in single day, 25,000 persons died of plague in Bombay Presidency. Till the forties, plague was an annual visitor, specially in northern India. Men were multiplying like flies and also dying faster than the flies. According to the 1921 census, in the decade 1911-21, India’s population actually decreased, even though the birth rate was a whopping 49 per thousand (believe it or not). The old picture of extreme old man of 60 (today one continues in service till that age) was an emaciated structure, bed-ridden, always coughing, prey to many diseases — a curse to himself and those around him. The only good thing that could happen to him and others was riddance by death. That has passed not into history, but into oblivion. Those were the ‘ blessings’ of the British rule, the average expectation of life was once 22-25-28-32 — rising now to over 60 in the Punjab region — the healthiest and the strongest. A heading in the newspaper the other day said, A child born today could have a life expectation of 130 years — sounds like a fairytale. Not that India did not have centenarians and higher-ups before our ages of misfortunes began. According to Mahabharata, Bhishm Pitamaha, the commander-in chief of the Kaurava armies, was 170 years at the time of war. Robert Browning struck an optimistic note by calling old age the best of all ages.

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
The last of life for which the
first was made..

Today aspirants are not struck with the old horrors of old age, for they see people in their seventies, eighties and nineties — leaders, editors, freelance journalists, politicians and ex-servicemen — going strong and presentable at that age and apparently suffering from no handicaps.

In most countries old persons are at the helm of affairs as kings, presidents, prime ministers, leaders of the opposition and the have not politicians.

A young man like Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister was an exception. So will be Sonia Gandhi, if she can get to the top post by jumping over the chasm of her foreign birth (Roman rajya in place of Ram rajya).

By definition an old person is one who has crossed the age of 60. The population of this species is rapidly growing in India as well as in the world and throwing up huge gigantic problems unprecedented in history; their up keep (from producers of wealth they become just consumers), their health care and what work to be provided to them. If you provide them jobs or other assignments (some still have some strength and expertise based on long experience), you would be doing it by robbing the youth of their due — and that could create tensions discontent, leading to a possible revolution.

Also when they number into crores, they could in a democracy become a strong political force to influence government policies in their favour. Perhaps some day in future governments all over the world would have to fix a maximum age for a voter (say 75), just as they have a minimum age (18 now).

The Indian tradition is to accord respect to old folk. Notice how at a marriage, the oldest patriarch is presented at the Milni ceremony. He can hardly stand.

The old ones claimed to be reservoirs of wisdom, based on long experience. It was Einstein who reversed this trend; he thought experience and precedents are the biggest bar to progress, innovations, fresh discoveries and inventions. Men of experience talk of the past, which is more dead than dodo, instead of paying sole attention to the present with fresh problems, and planning for the future that promises to be brand new, for never before in history the acceleration of change was as rapid as today.

Old in years, but young at heart and spirits and full of energy — that is the pose of every ambitious old man, though nature may falsify his claim, subtly if not ostensibly.

Extreme old age has its compensations too. See how pretty young ladies speak freely to you even words of love and goodwill. They even half-embrace you — no inhibition, no objection taken by any ‘guardian’ for your age is the guarantee of no evil. How enviously the young look at the scene (I speak from experience. I would be 90 in July 1999.

The old love to mix in the company of young men and young women (even their exclusive clubs and discos), but the youth shun them and find them bores, ever repeating bits of their life history thus : when I was a D.C. or Secretary of a government department or commander of a military unit.