INDIA: With Respect to Old Age - A First Person Commentary

GOA (Navhind Times), December 3, 2005: As per the plan of God, I said goodbye to office files, and plunged into a retired life in my nest — sweet, sweet home where my sweet wife churns out endless gastronomic delightful food for the family. But alas! I am not able to help myself to my satisfaction because the doctor’s have placed me on a dietary schedule. But some habits are difficult to resist like for example a pre-lunch drink and a post-lunch nap. Old age is boring if one stands and stares listening to the kitchen clock as it talks — tick, tock - tick tock. Therefore, I keep myself busy by writing middles with tickling thoughts and Solomon wisdom. I am in daily musical fits in the evenings as notes from music book dance before my eyes and the music flows on the organ, through my fingers. "To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be," said Lillian Smith. My religious gurus exhort me to live in the company of the Bible and the Rosary as each day moves me closer and closer to my final destination — the hell or the heaven, as the case might be. Therefore, thoughts of death haunt me. I dislike what people say about death: A man with scientific temper says: "When a man dies, his body goes to earth and his soul to air and that is the end of it." My mind does not accept this. Surely, God’s masterpiece, — the human soul transforms into something far beyond human imagination. Someone has compared death with the sailing of a ship, as: "When a ship starts for the ocean and fades on the horizon, people on the shore say, 'she is gone'". But people on the other side of the globe, on seeing the ship coming, say, "here she comes." Reflecting on this thought, when I die, my gentle readers will say, "he has gone." And my friends, some of whom have gone to hell and others in heaven, on recognizing me, will say, "here he comes." My mind goes to those who have died young; who have not lived to enjoy the benefits of retirement and who arrive at old age with socks to protect diabetic feet, neck collars, tummy belts, knee caps, anklet and wrist supporters to relieve old age pain and strain. Mother health has been kind to me for my list of such appendages is short. By J. L. D'Silva