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Kamala Das

Prudes, please excuse!

I have a few friends who have been pensioned off at 55. They are youthful and their minds have a clarity that the young may not possess. They do not know how they can survive without work. I suggested their joining a library to borrow books that are being talked about. Arundhati Roy's book may not have reached the standard libraries as yet. But you can thrill to Ayn Rand again if you have intellectual pretensions. Of, if you have been nurtured by Dale Carnegie in your youth, you can read Dilip Chopra. My friends tell me that they cannot read too well. Maybe, there is the beginning of a cataract.

What about gardening, I ask them. This is the age of terrace-gardening. People are growing brinjals, chillies and tomatoes in gunny bags filled with mud and fertilizers and rapidly getting featured in family magazines. Fingering dirt and manure will not suit our diabetic condition, mutter my friends. They are professors and bankers. They could not see themselves digging in the dirt.

What about politics, I ask them. Professors have been know to have taken up politics. A professor of economics can aspire to become the finance minister. One day he can present the budget and get photographed. My friend laugh off my sincere suggestions. Politics can be very dirty, we do not want to become avaricious criminals, they tell me with complacent scowls.

Then go and see a godman or a godwoman, I tell them. Travel to Puttaparthi and touch the feet of Satya Sai Baba. Marvel at his shock of curly hair. Look into his troubled eyes, watch the sudden flip of his hand while the bhajans are sung, procure some sacred ash to take home or, better still, go contemporary and visit Mata Amritanandamayi for whom even Khushwant Singh had only words of praise. Fall into her plump arms and receive her mechanical caresses. Feast your eyes on her dimpled cheeks, her peerless smile… You can dedicate the rest of your lives to her and join the ashram to engage yourselves in shramdaan.

Just about half a century ago, Indians looked old by the time they were 45. The skin wrinkled, the hair and teeth fell out and muscles weakened or sagged. Now with L'Oreal creams and Melatonine and other growth-hormones, a 60-year-old can look and feel 30. Among the middle classes and the rich, one will have to travel miles to spot an old hag. Women sparkle like ageless gems. Age gives a mellow gleam to the skin. The older people keep themselves well-scrubbed and well-groomed. The young have less time for such refinements, being busy living. They run around, smelling of perspiration. Perspiration smells faintly of the food ingested during the past twelve hours.

My retired friends ought to stop looking so miserable and start the ultimate love affair of their lives. At 55, the only sport that cannot cause a slipped disc or spondylosis is the sport of love-making (Prudes, please excuse).