Every one longs to live long but no one wants to grow old. Desiring longevity and avoiding old age pose a paradox just like the romantic urge of being wise while remaining a juvenile. The dread of old age, real and imagined, is the feeling of being out of sync which implies increasing inability to cope with and adjust to the changes that time brings about in an individual’s life. Things begin to appear either as what they are not or slipping out of one’s control.

Imaginings tend to be real and reality haunts as a spectre born of hallucinations. What could be tackled with ease in young age comes up as intractable in the old age. A process of physical and intellectual decay springs up unsolvable questions that every thinking human being is destined to face. The crisis of old age somehow compels you to recognize what you have done as not quite fulfilling and doable that was left undone as a means of realizing your real self. At the end of the day a nagging feeling makes you self-reflect: you could have been more than what you have been. The gaping gulf between self-realization and potential is a source of eternal angst and anguish. Man as long as he lives is always more than what he is. Brecht in one of his poems says about man: “…He was never the man you knew/ And he was the doer of more than his deed”.

The situation that reminds one of their non-fulfillments is exacerbated by another irredeemable factor of being rendered irrelevant which emerges as non depletable source of existential crisis. Being an oddity implies at best the risk of being ignored and at worst being rejected as an impediment in the normal flow of happenings. Being reduced to a thing and that too a worthless one, is an experience that can cause irreparable damage at emotional and psychic levels for a human being advanced in years.

Being compelled to be a mere spectator rather than an actor can push you towards a sort of state of forced and self-induced insanity under the sway of imaginings. Sense of being rendered worthless is the worth of old age that pushes you to make connections in an attempt to hold on to something. “I grow old… I grow old / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled / shall I part my hair behind? / Do I dare to eat a peach? / I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach / I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each / I do not think they will sing to me’, mutters ageing Prufrock to himself in T.S. Eliot’s poem.

Article continues after ad

In our society persons especially men when they retire from jobs whether government or private, are treated as worn out fixtures. Sadly they themselves believe that they are little more than half dead. They usually don’t plan post retirement life as productive beings thinking that life ends at sixty plus. But they still find themselves alive albeit with not many an option. So either they vegetate at home watching boring television programmes, cribbing and shouting at younger lot or they spend a good measure of their time at places of worship. One can see them sauntering between places of worship and homes with skull caps over their heads. Palpable fear of approaching death perhaps makes them more religious. But more importantly, generally neglected by families and communities with no prospect of socializing, old men find places of worship a source of solace; they throw up opportunities that facilitate socializing and bonding. They rarely explore other avenues for their expression or being useful since the concept of social service of any sort is alien to most of the grey hair in our part of the world. And the idea of doing things of their liking independent of families never occurs to them. Joint family system here is rotten to the core. It breeds visceral hatred of things which don’t exclusively benefit the family.

Disgusted with such a situation, Ezra Pound had said: ‘How hideous it is to see three generations gathered together’.

Upside of growing old is that the aged are traditionally taken as men of wisdom because of their long and accumulated experience. But there is downside to it too. The lines between wisdom born of old age and senility are blurred. The wisdom of old men is sought as much as it is doubted. Generally the counsel of old men is solicited but not acted upon. The great folk-storyteller of 20th century Punjab Mian Kamal Din in his dramatic story ‘Noor Sipra, son of Kandar’ narrates that Mahar Sarang, the chief of Bharwana tribe in Jhang, decided to attack the town of Rajoa whose people had killed some of his men. He mustered lords and fighters in thousands. His uncle, Mahar Hamayun, who was quite an old man, had conveyed his wish to the chief: ‘Dear nephew, the day you are ready to mount an expedition against the people of Rajoa, do show me the faces of the fighters’. It’s evening. The fighters are ready to leave. ‘Come on uncle, have a look at their faces’, says the chief. The man came forward leaning over his staff. He scuffed his feet around. After having a good look at the fighters, he said; ‘Sarang, don’t mount this punitive expedition’. ‘Why?’ ‘Nobody’s face is full of fire and passion except that of Noor Sipra. Your fighters are so scared that they can already see from here the town of Rajoa and its people stalking them. Your fighters will be routed. This Sipra will also be killed. Give up this campaign’. No one pays heed to what the old men say. What happens next, the storyteller tells us, is an utter disaster for the chief who has to beat a humiliating retreat.

Old age can be a blessing as well a curse. It’s a blessing if you are prepared to learn and make a fresh start. And it comes upon you as a curse when you see it as little more than your end. — soofi01@hotmail.com