Silver haired freak

Has the bar set for old age, come down? The teens are getting highly conscious about obesity; the twenties are getting conscious about joint pains and wrinkles; the thirties are busy with pills for reducing their blood pressure and sugar levels; the forties and the fifties have already signed bond papers for splitting their fortunes with their kith and kin.  

Health issues and insecurity looming large in our lives, it is common sense to know why the healthcare industry and insurance industry are always on the up. Even the communication industry has learnt our life so well that they offer “life time validity sim cards” knowing very well that we will not make it for more than couple of decades and to make it doubly sure they offer cell phones to kill you with it’s radiation.

Time table has become the norm of the day and with a virtual logo on every corporate employee’s forehead reading “time is money”…it is not written but chiseled with references to some top notch Business consultant who’s sign board reads Master Business degree from top B school with a western world address. Time to wake up marked in the daily calendar and hours of sleep time reduced as much as possible every min has become a commodity.

I am no exception!!! Remembering the days not too long ago, when 4 hours of play and 8 hours of sleep was priority and now, money with no cap to it is the priority and to fit 4 min of physical exercise in my daily calendar is a challenge. But I try my best not to contribute my penny to the healthcare industry. My 4 min of physical exercise includes using staircase instead of elevators, a brisk walk from home to the bus stop in the morning and bus stop back home in the evening.

Couple of days back, I was on my regular brisk walk towards home (it was not only about the 4 min exercise but also the cricket match between the Indians and the Windies) I attempted to overtake a person walking just ahead of me. I moved right and he moved right as well, I moved left and he moved left as well…this happened thrice. I slowed down and looked at the man; I knew the incident was purely coincidental but still sighed to show my frustration.

I looked again…there was something different about this man. His hair was silver and glittering in the dim street lights and patches of baldness in his head, a slack white half hand shirt with small black checks, grey bell bottom trousers, Hawaii slippers and a wired bag in his left hand. The retro looks and the silver hair indicated that he was pretty old; his head was swaying not because of old age but had a certain rhythm to it. I tried to overtake him, but this it was more of curiosity. As I crossed I realized that he was murmuring a song that was more of the divine kind. The man’s face was pale with a dark complexion but it was radiating with happiness and a sense of calmness, he smiled at me knowing that I was looking at him. Sure to be in his seventies, the man has lived his great life I thought, wanted to salute the “silver haired freak” and smiled back at him.

I broke back into my brisk strides, but my thoughts where on the silver haired freak, Peace of mind was what the man had but will I even be half happy at that stage??? Let alone happy, will I be even be living at that age??? Question marks all over!!!

I remember my grandfather playing “Hasha, busha all fall down” with my cousins in his eighties
I remember one of my friend’s husband who died of heart attack at the in his late twenties
I remember my grandfather walking 6 kms everyday even in his late seventies
I remember my friend have high BP in his early thirties    

The transition from the previous generation to this generation was not the best and we already seem to be bragging about the so called “Next Gen”, the generation that does things better and faster. Hope they don’t find better and faster ways of dying!!!