AGE!

Photo credit: www.azquotes.com
Memory tags: “Hope” from an endlessly overworked and crowded office.

Age is something that bothers all of us. I t seems to be such fun to be born, so we celebrate birthdays. Forgetting the flip side remains unsaid, we are a year older. The human race would do anything not to grow old, not to come close to the end, to death.  I vividly remember reading about the fountain of youth in Rider Haggard’s unforgettable novel, ‘She’. Every cosmetic cream worth its name comes in with age defying formulae. Diets, incantations, life styles all come tailored with magic mantras to prevent aging. The trouble is, most of these remedies are skin deep. Besides, does age have no compensations?   Increased human longevity need not be a curse if we can improve our quality of mental life and accept natural erosion in the physical. Is this possible? Or am I taking an  Eutopian view of the situation? I found my answer in an office.

It seemed to have hung forever in this office. A browned parchment saved by its frame and glass. It hung above the usual small time office maze, behind the secretary and his computer. Beyond it the little alcove held office kitchenette.  In the foreground, the tables, filing cabinets, cupboards and of couse the back door to the grand chamber.  One day, in the mad tizzy of daily work, when I awaited my turn to get something done,, I looked up and read these words….

 ‘People grow old by deserting their ideals. Age may wrinkle the skin but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt: as young as your self confidence, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.’  

Bless the author; it gave me hope and direction which I had to share with you. It told me people who want to start a new journey at the half century mark or beyond are not insane but romantics in the true sense of the word. They are taking a holiday from common sense which tells them to gracefully retire into senility.

In the mindless assembly line, that daily chores often become, this was spring in winter, hope among sea of dead habit. A view from my window reinforced this image. From this window, I can look into the verandah and beyond into the pine clad slopes The tree line begins just where my tiny kitchen garden ends. At the point where, a path trampled out by human feet meanders down, stands a medium sized pine. From my vantage point I can only see its lower trunk with odds and ends of dried twigs sticking out at various angles. Not being able to see its green arbor above, I hardly ever gave it a second look. Till one, cold, blustery March morning a bunch of pristine white, jasmine like orchids seemed to bloom out of thin air on its lower trunk. I ran out to check if I was dreaming or seeing things! No it was there for real! A bunch of breathtakingly beautiful flowers, growing out of apparently dried stalks. Had they too read the MacArthur message? Its stalks looked despairingly old till young hope blossomed out, as spring followed winter.

On the other side of this meandering path, the grass was half burnt. The winter wildfires that burn the tinder dry grass had taken their toll. The patches were alive with tiny star shaped blue gentian. The white orchid and blue gentian seemed to greet each other in a beautiful muted spring symphony. Even a harsh winter and wildfire burns did not seem to wrinkle their souls. They renewed life’s pledge anew every year.