Eighteen Till I Die

At the risk of a grammatical faux pas, ‘Geronto’ undoubtedly can be coined as the buzzword in the US of A. As if they have purposefully decided to audaciously turn their faces away from the inevitable phenomenon of aging- Americans can undoubtedly be called young at heart.

Senior citizens here by no yardstick have connotations that one has learnt to attach with the elderly. Contrary to the conditioned mental image they are vibrant, active, agile, fashionable and beautiful.

You cannot escape it – they are everywhere – most of all in the places one normatively least expects them to be. So after an hour’s running on the treadmill, overwhelming with a feeling of having conquered the world at your strongest best when you think you can go no more or more brazenly you perceive none can go anymore, you find the fifty five plus at the treadmill next to you still running without any intention of a break in her powerful strut in the near future. Your ego might still be bruising from the massive blow when you notice another forty-five plus pumping weights of the magnitude that at your present pace might be your goal in the next decade.

Before exploring the night-life here, the thought that ambience with loud music, smoke and inebriants are the sanctuary of chronologically young was so deeply in-grained that the contrary could not be conceived by any stretch of mental acrobatics. Thus, finding the ‘seasoned’ ones as comfortable as anyone else in such surroundings was a huge shell-shocker. With the attitude of any fashion diva they dress in the latest, with the grace of a ballerina they tout the best grooves and with the astonishment of most of us they look better than almost all one-third their age.

After fifty they decide they are ready to fall in love again, add another five years and they are still raking leaves in their garden, add another ten and a knee injury and you find them planning for the start of their second career in constructing designer bikes. As if drinking continuously from the elixir of life, they stubbornly refuse to ever give up.

The stark contrast for similar age group back home cannot but surfaces to mind. Over the hill usually begins there when you pass your twenties. Smoothly one espouses multiple alibis to dodge all efforts of holding on to the qualities of your youngest years. We are unable to workout because ‘my’ weak shoulder does not allow me; a second career is indelectable because the comforts of retirement are visible in the horizon and independence is secondary because of the option of being taken care of.

There certainly is some lesson to be learnt here- not only to live longer but also to live larger.