Page 6 - Seniorstoday November 2023 Issue
P. 6
Cover Story
For, these are the
good ol’ days
The nostalgia associated with old age, if it occurs, appears incurable, since
there can be no possibility of a return to an irrecoverable youth, writes
Vickram Sethi
Those were the days, my friend had crossed a border (The Bible prescribes
we thought they’d never end three scores and ten is the age to live up to).
we’d sing and dance forever and a day Now that I am on the other side, I would be
we’d live the life we choose classified as an old / senior. Old is a country
We’d fight and never lose no one wants to visit.
for we were young and sure to have our way As a young girl, my Aunt Mohini was
reprimanded by her mother for not
In a conversation, my grandfather very behaving well on a visit to her great-
casually told me that they were at the grandmother’s home.
railway station, “Signal ho gaya hai, train “She’s old,” said Mohini. “I don’t like old
kabhi bhi aa sakti hai aur humlog gaadi people”
chadd jaayenge”. I dismissed this but these When her mother pointed out that one
words stayed with me even after 50 years. day Mohini too will be old, like her great-
My father passed away at 80 and was in grandmother, Mohini laughed. “No, I
and out of the hospitals in the last two years won’t. How can I be old? I will be just the
of his life. Yet he did not discuss death. way I am.”
We continuously made travel plans Towards the end of her life, Mohini is
knowing fully well that these plans would 80 and must somehow accept that she is
never fructify but it was great conversation. “in the departure lounge”. “Check-in was
As I crossed my 70th birthday, I realised I a very long time ago,” she says. With her
6
