Not a Nice Man to Know

by Khushwant Singh

  On Old Age

  Whenever my son, living in Mumbai, was asked why he was going to Delhi, his reply was ‘to see my A. Pees’. A.P. stood for aged parents. Now that he is himself what in modern parlance is described as a senior citizen, and his mother has passed away, he answers the same question, saying ‘to see old Pop’.

  With the passing of generations, younger people’s attitude towards the old has changed. When I was a young man, we used to describe aged people as oldies, or worse sattreah bahattreah (feeble-minded in his seventies). Now persons in their seventies are not considered old. New attitudes and a sizeable vocabulary have been evolved to describe them. For one, their way to show respect to the aged is to keep a respectful distance from them. So we have old people’s homes, a good distance from the homes they once lived in and ruled over. There is much to be said in favour of old people’s homes. The few that I have visited in England and USA are as luxurious as any five-star hotel; separate cottages with modern amenities like world radio and TV, spacious dining and sitting rooms where you can meet and chat with others in your own age group; light, tasty food and wines, billiards rooms, card tables for bridge, rummy or patience. There are spacious lawns and flower beds. Above all, there are nurses and doctors in attendance round the clock. They cost a packet. Inmates are happy blowing up their life’s savings to live out their last days in comfort because they are aware they can’t take anything with them when they go. Their offspring don’t grudge pitching in because they are relieved of the responsibility of looking after their parents and can get on with their own lives. The notion of a family gathered around the bed of a dying patriarch or matriarch is as dead as a dodo.

  However much I approve of old people’s homes, I resent being described as a gerry (for geriatric), old boomer, fuddy-duddy, gaffer or old fogey (for god father), codger, coot, geezer, etc. Some new coinages like dinosaur, fossil, cotton top, cranky, crumbly are downright offensive. Eighty years ago Chesterton wrote in his essay, ‘The Prudery of Slang’: ‘There was a time when it was customary to call a father a father . . . Now, it appears to be considered a mark of advanced intelligence to call our father a bean or a scream. It is obvious to me that calling the old gentleman “father” is facing the facts of nature. It is also obvious that calling him a “bean” is merely weaving a graceful fairytale to cover the facts of nature.’ Call us oldies or what you will, but bear in mind that just as a saas bhi kabhi bahu thhi (the mother-in-law was once a bride), you too will one day become an old person and slang words like codger, geezer or fuddy-duddy can be hurtful even to an oldie who is hard of hearing.

  I am not quite deaf but getting more hard of hearing by the day. Friends are too polite to draw my attention to my growing infirmity but members of my family are more outspoken. My wife who, has been dead for many years, never spared me when I asked her to repeat what she had said with a question, ‘Hain?’ She would snap back and exclaim: ‘Dora! Why don’t you have your ears examined?’

  Now everytime a stranger calls on me, my son, if he is around, tells him or her, ‘Speak a little loudly. My pop is hard of hearing.’ And the other day my daughter asked me, ‘Aren’t you thinking of getting a hearing aid?’

  There are pros and cons about hearing aids. I had a Canadian friend, a well-known art critic who had one connected to a battery tucked into his front pocket. I asked him if it was a nuisance. ‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘I have it switched on when I am out on the road so that I can hear cars hoot to get out of their way. I also have it on when attending musical concerts. It’s only at parties when people begin to bore me that I switch it off and switch on a smile to appear as if I am all ears.’

  Two of my friends acquired hearing aids: Prem Kirpal, at ninety-six, got one from Paris at the enormous price of Rs 1.5 lakh. He hardly ever used it. When I asked him why, he replied: ‘The battery will run out and I’ll have to get another one from Paris.’

  Bharat Ram, who is the same age as me, also uses a hearing aid but has to cup his ears to catch what anyone is saying. The artist Satish Gujral lost his hearing as a child and was more than able to cope with life: he was able to teach himself to speak in English without being able to hear what he was saying. Then he found a living hearing aid in his comely wife, Kiran, who has taught him to read her lips and hand gestures. He gets over his handicap by doing most of the talking and reducing what he has to hear to the minimum. Some years ago he went to Australia for an ear surgery which would restore his hearing to normal. For some months he kept up the pretence that he could hear sounds he hadn’t heard before. Actually the surgery did nothing for him. He is back to his more reliable hearing aid—his wife.

  I am not yet a gone case. I can hear people sitting close to me without much difficulty. I have problems hearing people who speak too softly, go on at the speed of machine-gun fire or go on interminably mimi, mim, mimi. Then I assume the mien of the smiling Buddha and occasionally grunt to indicate I am following what is being said. My only fear is that the person might ask me a question. I answer it with a benign smile. I also have problem answering telephone calls. Young people, mainly girls, are awed, as if they were talking to an ogre, and say what they have to at a breathless speed. I have to admonish them, ‘Please speak slowly and clearly as I am hard of hearing. It would be better if you spelt out what you have to say on paper. I can see better than I can hear.’

  So far I have got away with it. I still enjoy classical music on my satellite radio, follow the news and comments on TV channels. If I am hard of hearing, it’s other people’s problem, not mine. But use a hearing aid to help them out? No. I often wonder if deaf people are cremated or buried with ear plugs and batteries or sent to the other world as deaf, as they were on the day they died.

  Sometimes old people in their eighties write to me about the problems of life in its decline. They complain about increasing helplessness, being neglected by their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. Their chief complaint is loneliness: they do not know how to pass their time. Being old, they get little sleep and are up well before dawn. They believe in god, say their prayers, go to temples, gurdwaras and churches or offer namaaz five times a day; and yet time hangs heavy on them. What are they to do?

  I am older than most of them. I have old-age problems like rotting teeth having to be replaced by false ones, glasses changed periodically because my vision is getting poorer by the day, having to use hearing aids, carrying a walking stick to prevent myself from falling, taking dozens of pills against fluctuating blood pressure, an enlarged prostrate, an irregular heartbeat etc. But I manage to get at least six hours of sleep at night, despite having to get up twice or thrice to empty my bladder, and another hour in the afternoon. I too get up before dawn.

  Since I do not believe in god or prayers, my mind turns to more earthly problems. Will my bowels move properly this morning? Should I drink more orange-carrot juice and glasses of water to help me clear my stomach? When I get a good clearing, I am relieved and happy. When I do not, it weighs on my mind. I am edgy and ill-tempered. It affects my work. I do not grumble about being neglected by my children and grandchild. They do their best to look after my needs—see that I eat what I want, take me to doctors, dentists and opticians. They know I prefer to be left alone, so they leave me alone. Time does not hang heavy on me because I always have something to occupy my mind. My days pass as swiftly as a weaver’s shuttle.

  What advice do I give them? First, reduce your dependency on others to the very minimum and do your best to be as self-sufficient as you can. Fill your time by doing things that occupy your mind and time. Don’t waste time on muttering prayers you don’t understand but meditate by stilling your mind from wandering. A minute or two will be good enough. If you can’t read or watch TV because they strain your eyes, listen to good music on your radio with complete attention. Sit in a park and watch birds, butterflies and insects—not just look at them but watch them closely, try to identify them, read about them and add to your knowledge of nature. C
ultivate hobbies like collecting stamps, preserving leaves and flowers, origami—whatever you fancy. Even learn how to knit your own sweaters and socks. Free yourself of the hunger for human company. Befriend dogs, eats, birds—they will respond to your affection more than human beings. Equally important is to cut down on your food intake. Get up from your dining table with hunger unfulfilled: you will then look forward to enjoying your next meal and keep thinking about it. What you eat and drink will taste better. When fully occupied mentally, time will never hang heavy on you. You wake up and before you realize it the day is over and it is time to retire to bed for the night. You will enjoy sound sleep.

  Both Zohra Sehgal, who is two years older than me, and her Pakistani sister Uzra Butt, who is two years my junior, are fitter than I am, both in mind and body. Zohra has a phenomenal memory. She can recite reams of Urdu poetry by the hour without looking at a scrap of paper; I learnt Uzra does much the same in Lahore. The two sisters conceived, concocted and enacted a dialogue between them, Ek Thee Nani (Once There Was a Grandmother), which draws packed houses in India and Pakistan. What is the secret of their physical and mental fitness? From Zohra I gathered she eats very little and lives largely on soups and broths. She spends an hour every morning on the roof strolling about and refreshing her memory of Urdu poetry. She has cut down her social life to the minimum and refuses to give interviews either on the phone or in person unless it is paid for. I chided her when she came to wish me on my ninetieth birthday. I said, ‘Zohra, I hear you charge a fee for talking to anyone. Is that true?’ She beamed a smile and held out the open palm of her hand, ‘Haan—yes, lao fees do, pay me at once.’

  From Uzra I picked up another clue to longevity. The sisters had been with Prithvi Theatre and then with Uday Shanker’s dance troupe doing Bharatanatyam. I asked Uzra whether she was still dancing. ‘There are not many takers for Bharatanatyam in Pakistan. But this time in India I have been learning Odissi—it is less mechanical and more sensuous. I find it more fulfilling.’ I was amazed: to learn a new form of dance at the age of eighty-eight is truly defying the passage of the years. Clearly, if you want to prolong your life, look forward to doing something in the tomorrows to come.

  It is most important that an old person reconciles himself to the fact that he has become old and does not try to behave like a young man; if he does so, he will only make an ass of himself. It has been truly said: Jawaanee jaatee rahee / Aur hamein pataa bhee na chalaa / Usee ko dhoond rahey hain / Kamar jhukai hooey (Youth had fled / And I did not know about it / I seek for it on the ground / With my back bent double).

  No matter how well a person may look after himself, with age, parts of his body begin to decay. Teeth rot and have to be replaced with dentures. That necessitates radical changes in our diet. No more tough meat or vegetables or fruit that need to be bitten into with sharp teeth. So in every home that has an old man, a parallel menu has to be made to cater to his needs. Eyes go bleary. Lucky is an old man who does not have to wear spectacles and is able to read newspapers or watch television. I still do both but only just.

  Hearing becomes defective and one may need a hearing aid. I am sure my hearing is sound but my friends tell me it is not. Memory begins to play tricks. I still pride mine: I can recite passages of poetry by the yard and hardly ever consult the telephone directory to dial a number. But I do forget faces, even those of pretty girls, and have problems recalling names. It does not bother me very much.

  What bothers me is having to slow down, and my inability to walk without the help of a walking stick. I recall the days of my youth when I walked from Simla to Narkanda and back nonstop—72 miles. Now I am reduced to doing a few rounds of my little garden and am scared of walking on an uneven path lest I stumble and break one of my bones. That is often the prelude to the end of an old man’s life. Old people become slothful, slovenly and lazy. I never suffered from the daily bath fetish. I find rubbing the vital parts of my body with a damp towel as cleansing as immersing myself in a tub or pouring lota-fulls of water on my body. I no longer bother to change for the night and sleep in the same clothes I wear all day long. When I eat, soup, daal and curry drip on my beard and on to my shirt. People around me find it repulsive. I could not care less.

  More serious is the problem created by an enlarged prostate gland. The urge to empty one’s bladder often does not give one the time to get to a urinal. You wet your trousers or salwar. It is best to pretend you splashed water carelessly. Others know the truth but maintain a polite silence.

  With old age, values change. Bowel movements become sluggish. One has to resort to laxatives to ensure proper evacuation. It’s odd but an old man’s day begins with worrying about his bowels. If he gets a clear evacuation he feels as if he has conquered the fort of Chittorgarh. If he does not, he remains cranky for the rest of the day.

  I keep going with the help of a variety of pills, twenty every day. I grumble but I know they keep me alive and kicking.

  It is true that a person is himself not aware of the passage of years: he may have turned grey, lost his teeth, become hard of hearing and may barely be able to see, but his vanity prevents him from accepting that he has grown old and senile.

  It is other people, mostly children, who rudely remind him that he has aged. Boys and girls who used to called him uncle start addressing him daadoo or naanoo. The other day a family accosted me in Lodhi park. The mother asked her four-year-old son to touch my feet. The child looked me up and down, shouted ‘buddha’—old fellow—and ran away. I was mortified.

  I delude myself that I have not really become a buddha. My friends have but I still have a sparkle in my eyes and my heart is as young as it ever was. One of my lady friends, twenty years younger than me, is now a grandmother and has turned grossly fat. I continue to pay her compliments as I did thirty years ago when she was fair and saucy. The truth is encapsulated in another couplet:

  Begum, teri husn ke hukkey mein aanch nahin;

  Ik ham hee hain

  Ki phir bhee gudgudai jaatey hain.

  (Begum, there is no fire left

  In the hookah of your beauty;

  It is only I who still keeps drawing on it.)

  You can’t do very much about old age. It creeps up on you at a snail’s pace to start with, then gathers speed in your middle age, and before you know it, you are an old man or woman. The symptoms appear in different people at different times: hair starts turning grey; some people start greying in their thirties, others in their fifties or sixties; some manage to have black hair into their seventies.

  Many dye their hair and beards to appear younger than they are and manage to fool others for some time, but not themselves. There are changes in the body that make you aware of the relentless march of time. Your teeth begin to decay. Everytime you visit your dentist, he yanks one out till all are gone and he fits you with dentures that look whiter than the originals.

  Once again, the age when people start losing their teeth varies enormously. Some lose them in their forties, others go to their graves or funeral pyres in their eighties or nineties taking all their thirty-two originals with them. The same applies to the eyes and ears; some wear glasses while still at school; others need no visual aid till the end of their days.

  Some begin to turn hard of hearing by middle age and need hearing aids; others never have hearing problems. The most important milestone in people’s lives is the state of their libido.

  Both men and women regard a declining interest in sex as a sure indicator of ageing. With men this is more dramatic than with women, who can enjoy sex long after their menopause. Men continue to fantasize about it all their lives but sometime after they have completed the biblical span of seventy years, they find their bodies unable to fulfill their desire; their minds remain as potent as ever, their organs let them down.

  And they have to accept that they are into old age and the fun has gone out of their lives. This is what men need most—as Nazeer Akbara Bedi put it: Har cheez se hota hai bura burhaap
a/Aashiq ko to Allah na dikhlaaye burhaapa. (Of all things that happen, the worst is old age / May Allah never afflict a lover with old age.)

  Men never give up the hope of recovering their youth. They try all sorts of elixirs, aphrodisiacs (kushtas) and now Viagra to retain their potency. They may succeed in restoring a little self-confidence and ability to perform. Women find it harder than men to accept old age. They are prone to lying about it and use cosmetics liberally to hide their wrinkles. It takes a brave man to go on paying compliments to an old flame in her older incarnation.

  Very reluctantly men give up hope of recovering their youth. The French comedian and singer, Maurice Chevalier, very rightly remarked, ‘When you hit seventy, you eat better, you sleep more soundly, you feel more active than when you were thirty. Obviously, it is healthier to have women on your mind than on your knees.’

  Chevalier also has the ultimate answer to growing old: ‘Old age isn’t bad when you consider the alternative.’

  Old age need not be an unmitigated curse. It has many advantages. You are freed of ambition to achieve more. ‘Of making many books, there is no end and much study is weariness of the flesh,’ says the Bible. One can take liberties with young girls because they know and you know it will never go beyond a warm hug. One can get away with bad manners; people forgive you as a cranky, old grey-beard.

  In my late eighties, I enjoy reading pornography. Old bawdy songs come back to my mind. One favourite used to be a Punjabi doggerel about a white bearded lusty bony. It began with ‘toomba vajdaee na, taar bina (she cannot live without her lover)’. It went on to describe the antics of the buddha baba who was ‘vadda bajogee’ (great miracle man, very clever). He made love to a she-camel by climbing a ladder; he spent the night in the brothel and left his companion with a counterfeit four-anna piece (‘chavanni khotee’). Old age need not be dull or boring.