March backwards in Time!

Cheeniya · Apr 13, 2007

Very often we witness in cinema and plays young men and women donning the role of characters far beyond their age and making an impressive job of it too. In fact, their portrayal of old age can be so credible that we may tend to forget that, in real life, they are not even half the age of the characters that they portray. On the contrary, the sight of persons on the threshold of, in bureaucratic jargon, the age of superannuation donning the role of college students and running around the trees singing bawdy love songs can evoke myriad feelings. Seeing them we run the whole gamut of emotions from A to Z, the most predominant being one of revulsion.

The whole thing may sound unfair but it is the stark truth.
Does this stem from the fact that all of us have reconciled ourselves to the irrefutable aging process and the consequent inevitability of changes in life style? Perhaps. It is also likely that our mind accepts a youngman portraying senile characters but not the vice versa because of our mindset that the aging process is irreversible. We have no second opinion on the fact that old age will ultimately catch up with every one and once you are there, you are there for good!

But wait a minute! What is all this hogwash about aging process? That is purely a physical process just like it can happen to a vegetable. Vegetables rot through aging process, as they have no mind to resist it with. We have a mind and if we do not use it as a weapon against aging, we are bound to rot too. We all have a mind that can stay clear off the battle that the body wages against aging. The process does not affect the mind per se. But the body can make the mind believe that it too has to age. It arises out of the body’s apprehension that if the mind keeps young, it may make such demands on the body’s physical functions that it may find it difficult to cope with. So body ages, the mind thinks it also ages likewise and both perish.

Won’t it be more prudent if we let the mind fight the body’s resigned attitude and bolster it with fresh energy so that the last traces of youth linger till the dying day? Oh God, there is so much to do and why do we sit hunched in a corner because we think we are old? Get that thought out of your mind so that it can do the restorative work for you. If you don’t still catch what I say, you deserve to stay old. If you do see my point, come and let’s march backward in time!

sunkan · Apr 13, 2007

dear sri,
wonderful article, but here u have forgotten to mention u need a good motivator to live a life full, people like u who r full with vigour and motivating the entire IL females is something to be mentioned here...i think the lot are very young and will defenitely give u a run for this article...:2thumbsup:great young man....more to come and i await with more eager...regards sunkan

Chitvish · Apr 13, 2007

Dear Sri,

A brilliant anaysis of the hitherto unexplored psyche of the aged people, now called Senior Citizens ! I am sure you and I , as few of the elderly members here are undergoing all that you have written about. I loved your post, Sri !

I fully agree with you that it is in our own hands to see that our physical and mental, rather, emotional vigour continue fully till our last day.
I feel, in our Indian society, in particular, our conditioning is the main culprit.

If an elderly person loves to flirt ( I am not mentioning about your profile, please), immediately he is labelled
மீசை நரைச்சாலும், ஆசை நரைக்கலை

An elderly woman , if dressed brightly is frowned upon, as “ not wearing sober colours, befitting her age”. There is an immediate sneer ! We are more bothered and conscious of answering the society at large – in the process, allow our own desires, unfulfilled dreams to take a back seat.
““Ageing gracefully”, is a very common term used by us ! Don’t you think it is relative ?
I still do not understand what it means? In fact, with my experience in life, I would say that one really should unwind in old age, after all family commitments are fulfilled.
Well, let us both break the myth of ageing process and prove in the forum that we can be as energetic, if not more that the younger generation. I join hands with you, young man !
Love,
Chithra.

sudhavnarasimhan · Apr 13, 2007

wow, Cheeniya sir, i liked this article.....it had a neat flow of thoughts and was very crisp too!
Well looks like what you and Chitra are doing here is something we all appreciate and you both strive to pass on your youth to us.....which is definetely helping us to stay young mentally!

This was a good article.....actually when u started about the film stars etc, i thought you are talking about our superstar and the young garb he seems to be adorning for his latest release tomorrow! I have been watching them on Sun tv and was wondering how this movie is going to fare and WHY is HE doing such a role!
Well maybe he is also trying to retain his youth!:idontgetit:

Here i would also like to mention my mom who is so lively and spirited and we daughters are always chiding her to behave her age....she still looks young and like my sister,...and my daughter calls her by name and talks about boyfriends to her to which she answers in the same language.....i feel that many a time i feel older and more sick than her and most of the times she has been the motivator for us! I would love to get old Gracefully like her!
Like Sundari has rightly pointed out dont we all need motivators ....Chitra had donned that role all this time( only due to her lovely recipes and feedbacks, encouragement, i have become a creative cook now!, not to mention her slokams ETC ETC!) and now you have started to motivate us to THINK young!

Vidya24 · Apr 13, 2007

Dear Cheeniya sir,

Good to read another motivating, thought provoking article on mental and physical aging. The curtain raiser by Varalotti a few weeks back was equally stimulating.

I loved this piece for the pithy, back home references you make. I remember watching Shivaji-KR Vijaya movies, where both would be paunchy, jowly, pancacked- still clutching a notebook and running round trees in a mockery of college life and youth! Cinema may be willing suspension of disbelief, still this was way beyond imagination. Never had qualms about seeing Kamalhassan as Naicker . As you point out, it is all about aging gracefully!!

I am reminded of Lewis Carroll here. To stay in the same place (I imply same age) we have to run faster and faster. To reach somewhere, especially when that somewhere is backwards in time, we have to run twice as fast (not exact quotes). And so to stay young, we all run, litreally and metaphorically, twice as fast.

The mind is such a potent anti-aging elixir! We could jog, pump iron, wear modern attire, frequent discos and cyber cafes(haunts of the nouveaux young as opposed to the vieux young)- still if the mind is gnarled and aged, we will continue to age and wither. After all the quest of everlasting youth has inspired everyone everywhere- from our own Yayati to Jason----

Stay young at heart,Cheeniya, as you now are!!

regards
Vidya

Cheeniya · Apr 13, 2007

Dear Sunkan
And I had to strive so hard to be called a young man! Like they say of Elisa Dolittle in My Fair lady, I did it!
I consider manifestations of old age are a greater curse than old age itself. Frankly, I dont see any need to grow beyond 40!
Our own Sidhdhas have lived a 1000 years . Tirumoolar wrote one Mandiram every year for 3000 years I am told! Not to talk of good old Dasarath.
Work on wrinkles from deep inside than resorting to synthetic external aids!
Sri

Cheeniya · Apr 13, 2007

Dear Chitra
Thank you for joining the bandwagon of Let's Stay Young Group!
There is no prescribed route to take the U turn in aging and each pursues his own I guess. After reading Deepak Chopra's Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, I am thoroughly convinced I am on the right track.
And I cant thank Sunkan adequately for bringing me to IL as IL is the greatest 'age buster' according to me. In the last few months that I have been with you all, I have lost 15 years already(in weight reduction parlance!)
Incidentally, when one says, I have lost 10 kgs, it means losing what you had gained already but when we say, I have lost 10 years, it would imply deduction from future or residual age!
Well, nice to have you alongside in my March backwards!
Sri

Cheeniya · Apr 13, 2007

Dear Sudha
When you have such a great motivator in your mother, do you really require Cheeniya's recipes? Reading about your mum brought a smile to my lips! I hope Sudha inherits that quality of her mother more than anything else. That kind of a mindset is a winner always!
Sri

Cheeniya · Apr 13, 2007

Dear Vidya
Your light touches with your brush always add colour and life to my own narration! The college scenario in films is yet another instance of value addition! To be frank with you, even we never ran around trees in our college days and imagine such a thing happening today!
I guess even dogs have stopped running around trees these days!
Btw, I remember a 50 year old joke about a man boasting that they had the fastest dogs in US in Texas to which the other says, "Maybe the trees are so far apart!"
Sri

Kamla · Apr 13, 2007

Another encouraging and refreshing view on age from you, young Sri
We have it easy here in the US as the concept of age is totally different. But I keep saying that and forget that things have taken huge leaps in India too. I can only go by the pictorials and when I see the likes of Hema, Dimple, Anil Kapoor to mention a few, the old there is keeping young, fit and glamorous The Indian (Zee, Sony) TV soaps are full of mothers and fathers who look like they have walked just out of a fitness parlour.
But coming closer home, my IL home, I am seeing the young and vibrant Chithra, Cheeniya, Sunkan etc who warm my heart and energise my being.
You are so right when you say that we don't mind young people graying their hair, like recently Tabu in Namesake, but cringe to see Rajani in a blonde wig and swinging to guitar. It has nothing to do with prejudice, more to do with aesthetics. Atleast for me, it surely is. Feeling young and looking young are two different things, I must stress. So why ridicule oneself by projecting to be a twenty five (or twentyseven) when all you can muster is be fifty five? Please, spare us!
What next from your great churning machine Sri...looking forward to it

L, Kamla