Age Is Just A Number: High Fives To My Young Fellow Seniors!

As the saying goes ‘age is just a number’, and in some cases it is high and in other cases low. The number doesn’t necessarily have something significant to do with the mind associated inevitably with it. If we go further from year to days the numbers become even more like simple numbers. Like when we say 10 years it seems to be a very long time—a decade as you’d normally like to refer to; but if we break it in number of days it’s just 3650 days or less. However, high numbers do signify body ageing which is biological and cannot be avoided, and unfortunately, ageing is taken by others with ‘low numbers’ in a negative way. The moment people cross the number 60 they are called ‘old guys’, and when someone dies in the range between 75 and above the others say that ‘the old guy has lived enough’. Lifestyle immoderation and inherited or accidentally acquired diseases do make the process of ageing faster and painful in some. But in any case, the mind can still play a vital role.

 

The mind cannot age unless you acquire diseases like the Alzheimer’s or dementia which fortunately can be prevented by the sheer energy of your mind, spirit and brain activity. The forces of the mind and enthusiastic attitudes can help you even while having terminal diseases. God forbid, if you keep on giving in to the negative thoughts and actions these send open invitations to all kinds of diseases. They should never think that once they have retired from their regular job, they have become old. Therefore, it is the strong mind with an equally strong willpower that converts age into just numbers. We keep on sleeping every day and wake up the next day with the same kind of thoughts or resolves or plans. Just how could your mind change or age overnight? Yes, it’s only the days or years that gets added to your ‘number’. If you want, you can keep your mind always numberless or ever young, and that’s what matters to all senior citizens, so called because they have higher ‘numbers’.

 

I have been privileged to be a member of a local club of senior citizens where most of them have numbers the range 65 to 70 with some of them approaching 75 or even 80. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that for them age is exactly a number. They have young minds and an indomitable spirit. Most of them go for morning and evening walks, eventually joining each other at the club premises, unfailingly every single day. They chat cheerfully for about an hour in the evening, at times enjoying steaming cups of tea or coffee, and then go back to their families—some with sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren while others live with their spouses. They are digitally literate and always engage themselves in the social media and groups with gusto. They are very kind-hearted and organize charity too as needed. We cannot avoid the unfortunate fact that many of the people with higher numbers have to maintain large families with meagre pension and a nagging financial insecurity.  

 

Occasionally, they organize get-togethers on someone’s birthday or anniversary or state/national events or at times without any reason, just for the fun of it. And, I’ve seen the tremendous enthusiasm and hyperactivity in going about organizing such events, moving around on scooters or cars or bicycles or auto-rickshaws; this reminds me of the innocent fun we had as children when organizing similar events or unions, and also in various stages of our varying ‘numbers’. There is always absolute celebration at the events or parties where everyone is forced to present a song or something through the loud speaker. One of two of them are actually good professional singers. Yes, mind is necessarily young; you only need to keep it so. In effect, we are always children—the children of God! High fives to us! And cheers!

 

Naturally then, when we’re referred to as ‘old folks’ we righteously get angry as happened recently with me. A very good friend of many years took my consent one day for an assignment in a forthcoming international event and asked for my updated bio. As I never say no to either tea or work, I went ahead with the proceedings. Around 10 days elapsed with no information from him and I thought perhaps he could not get it approved from the highest authority. Then, suddenly a call came from his organization offering me a job that forms only a miniscule part of the assignment offered earlier. Sensing the inevitable I said an assertive no.

 

Late evening that day the old friend called me, and then I came to know of the ‘reasons’ for not approving my assignment. Maybe the assignment was pre-decided in favor of someone with low ‘numbers’ or the younger smarter generation, and the discussion about my candidature a mere formality. Two of my earlier friends/associates of the organization convinced their supreme boss that since I am in ‘old age’ and I live far off from that office it might not be advisable to give me the job. The reference of the ‘old age’ infuriated me while I dismissed the second reason as a decoy, totally irrelevant as regards the assignment, and showed my anger in public, but deciding to move on.

 

That ‘telephone syndrome’ in fact energized me. For some time in the past few weeks, I’ve been in a dilemma about continuing with my writing work as I thought perhaps I had no ‘reading’ readers. A few days back I took a painful decision to stop my writing. But those telephone calls, and of course, a few very kind comments in social media from experienced author-friends/associates, made me reverse my decision instantly. True to myself I have decided to go on working till the last days of life, not allowing the ever-present external factors to be deterrents. Yes, I’m sticking to my basic nature irrespective of the increasing numbers getting added to me. My mind is ever-young like my senior citizen friends and by the grace of God I still have a reliably mobile body. Cheers for that too!

Happy New Year 2022 To Our Dear Readers And Friends!

We wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2022! Let the New Year bring all the happiness, success and prosperity in your life, home, work and relationships. Most importantly, we wish you all very good and sustained health, and of course, a never-ending immunity against any intruding virus! We’ve decided to post our wishes well in advance, because the New Year is going to dawn in at different hours in different countries across the globe. And also, to avoid the last-minute hassles! Enjoy at home with your dearest members of your family!  Stay blessed!

 

You must be wondering that we’ve not touched the two-year-old roaring COVID-19 pandemic in a direct way at all! Well, because we want to end with a piece of good news! The Hindu Almanac calculations for the New Year (panchang 2022) say that sometime during the coming year we’ll all be ‘ferried across’ (as per an interpretation by a friend of mine) which clearly means that we’ll surely overcome the curse of the pandemic in the coming year! Hope this comes out to be true! Omicron, consisting of many existing mutants, could very well be the last to haunt us. Even otherwise, optimism and a positive frame of mind always help us conquer all obstacles. Let’s hope for the best! Thank you all for your continued interest in these humble pages!

The Half-Full Half-Empty Glass Syndrome!

Some people always start with a ‘no’ to anything uttered or addressed to; of course, many of them don’t really mean ‘no’, it’s being somewhat a habit of saying so. However, for others a ‘no means no’ always to all matters under the sun, even if the most correct piece of news or development is reported to them for the first time. This is the germ of negativity that, if unchecked, eventually takes full control of the hapless human mind. Such negative vibes are often infectious, affecting all around adversely, let it be homes or offices or public places. This writer has experienced this syndrome in his various train journeys: yes, in India most people are woefully used to late running of the trains, but when a train in fact is doing great, running on time or ever before time, those souls continue to emit the negative vibes ‘no, it’s running late already or going to run late or will finally arrive three-four hours late’ and so on; and this writer has seen on many occasions how these negative vibes actually lead to the train losing on time due to a string of unforeseen goof-ups, and finally running late irrecoverably. We don’t need to submit scientific proofs on the negative-vibe-infection syndrome, because most the things in the human mind cannot in fact be proved.  

For the last few months, the waves of negative vibes are rising as worryingly as the COVID virus. Reasons for this are not far to seek. In the wake of the ‘new normal’ forced upon humanity by the killer virus people are getting deprived of things they always loved to do: they are unable to mix with friends or relatives even in the domestic environs; they are deprived of all parties, all social-cultural-religious events; they can no longer visit the movie houses or their most favorite restaurants; in some regions they cannot even take their morning or evening walks or jogs or strolls; all the women are getting tired of being in the kitchen continuously with no outings or outside food coming in, and even if the men try help them in cooking the ‘casualties’ turn out to be more than benefits; people living in congested or compressed spaces, particularly in the Indian slums and low-middle class homes, are getting suffocated and impatient; and no shopping ecstasies can be indulged in except for the tedious and repetitive online choices.

The negativity surge has been emerging as a socialistic phenomenon too sans class bias with even the celebrities of various fields in their spacious flats getting angry, frustrated and impatient. The film industry, particularly in India, seems to be affected the most, from the stars to the junior artists, technicians and small-time operators, the former being suffocated due to forced idleness and depression while the latter suffering due to lack of employment and financial difficulties. For example, the Bollywood (Hindi film industry in India) has been twisting and seething with suffocation so much so that this possibly led to one rising star, Sushant Singh Rajput, committing an alleged suicide which in turn has threatened to divide the industry into two, one side alleging mafia-rule and nepotism while the other side defending itself and facing grilling by the police.

Many have questioned the role of the media too in spreading negativity. ‘Why do they always highlight the negative stories’ has been the constant query on the minds of people. Videos of various stray incidents like keeping dead bodies for a long time along with recuperating patients in COVID treatment wards or patients dying due to alleged hospital denial to admit or total lack of dignified cremation for some dead patients are in fact being given repeated airtime in the Indian television channels at various times. The media, in the unusual crisis-laden cut-throat throes of competition, must be catering to the negativity that has mushroomed in the previous few months. Of course, good-news stories are also being shown, but in some cases even good-news stories get the negative tinge; for example, some channels tend to use somewhat negative words like ‘slump’ or ‘dip’ while dishing out a most positive story that new COVID cases are coming down in certain cities, and while showing COVID hospitals with lots of empty beds the impression that comes out from the structure of the story is that the hospitals should really be blamed for under-utilizing the beds. Such is the power of negativity.

As strong as the Corona surge, the negativity surge is finding an obvious outlet in the social media too. Instead of inspiring the users with positivity, most of the posts/videos are aimed at only terrorizing/misinforming/misleading them. The emotions expressed are always either ridicule or disdain or rumor-mongering or satire at best. With the digital existence becoming a reality now, constant exposure to such negative hammerings are bound to impact the human mind in an undesirable way, strengthening the negative surge further.

Like the COVID surge the negativity surge too must be contained with positive measures. Unfortunately, the authorities cannot do much on this front. The people must consider, reconsider and arm themselves with a strong positivity in everything they do, from even eating to watching, talking, listening or working, applying moderation and discretion everywhere. They must tune in only to genuine and confirmed sources of information; they must not blindly keep on forwarding posts/videos in the social media; and in short, they must learn to differentiate a half-full glass of water from a half-empty one. They must counter the word ‘no’ in a very practical way, unless it’s a matter of life and death. Good positive stories are indeed unfolding everywhere around the globe, you only need to behold these. As we talked of people living in congested slums, Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi in Mumbai, has created a success story in containing the virus most effectively which got international praise and commendation. The will in people is all-powerful, if they just decide to win against a virus or negativity, they will surely win. Irrespective of being Corona negative or Corona positive, you must always be positive in life, against any challenge. No better time to accomplish positivity than the present.