Getting through old age, a day at a time

IM Soni 

Iam 84 years old, and want to share a secret: you simply grow old in calendar years. In fact, as you age you grow up! Fellows my age ought to look into their hearts. Apart from growing up and getting refined, they become mellow.

True, there is a bit of panting, a tardiness in the limbs, a protesting backbone that makes it hard to pick up something from the floor, but these are trifles for the body to tackle.

Many aged people are secretly uneasy about their exit. They resent death breathing down their neck. They overlook the fact that death opens the portal of immortality.

After crossing 84 milestones, my own reaction is one of astonishment — how could I possibly get so far? I have reached a plateau now, from where I look not at the debris of the past years, but also the glories of the sunset days.

Is it not something of a feat to have lived for close to a century? Every dawn finds me more filled with wonder and better qualified to draw joy from it. I had not fully known the joy of having leisure that is the gold-dust of time.

I stand on the sideline and watch my children and their children fulfilling the dreams I could not. Nothing is more satisfying than that. I have thus fulfilled myself as a human being.

I am free from the many humdrum activities that by their sheer monotony rust the soul. Now, there is a surge of memories that comes breaking in on my inner silence — a sober delight, the unheard music....

I get up with the crowing of the rooster, because sleep has half-deserted me, and also because the intense eagerness to live draws me out of bed, despite my protesting body. I go out. 

Morning brings tea with mint and tulsi. It is followed by the newspaper, ‘Voice of the people’, which puts me in touch with the outside world. There is an incredible amount of astonishing, absurd, rational and uplifting news reports. Because of the time, and fragment of eternity, I go through the editorials — sometimes twice!

As the day draws to a close, I retire for the night, at 10 pm, in the same manner — a secret sweetness swaying me down, as I behold beaded bubbles winking at the brim of my glass.

It has been said the beauty of future is that it comes one day at a time. Anyone can bear the burdens of old age for a full 24 hours.