‘if I live to her age, I would certainly not want to be saddled with such worries’ she used to think. Watching her mother struggle to keep astride two or more realms of life used to make Sandhya reflect. Her mother, widowed after leading a typically protected life, had taken the plunge, when she decided to stay alone in her independent house and take charge of her own life. Thanks to a foresighted husband, she had been left with a handsome bank account which she gradually learnt to manage. From signing cheques to verifying her bank passbook entries and claiming interests, her mother had learnt it all, her innate intelligence matching her sense of loss. Her mother had her moments of glory when people were awe struck by her efficiency. A well maintained garden, a repaired house…for her children visiting her it was still a picnic from which they never went back deprived of the gifts they were given when their father was alive.

But, as it is said, you lose some to gain some. In her moments of loneliness, a cloud of despondency came over her mother. Rushing to complete her chores before the maid came, she wondered at times to what good it led to have to forego her sense of independence to cater to the whims of those few on whom her life depended for a smooth run. From a healthy, hardy woman she had gradually come to depend on medicines to soothe her aching limbs –and carry on. Is my heart ok she would worry, am I eating too much salt?
As her mother moaned over the phone that her monthly medicine bill was overtaking her provisions outlay, Sandhya had pondered over the futility of it all. Her mother’s foresightedness irked her. Always wanting to foolproof life, stock things, pray to different gods. What kind of a structured life was hers? Always racing four steps ahead of today, yet hopelessly bound by compelling vagaries of day to day life.
A die hard believer in Nature, sandhya had, while still in her 30s, shunned tablets and syrups, and braving inconveniences to her body and mind, let Nature do the healing. All around her people spoke of diseases as if they were precious inheritances. They did not realize that one thing led to another and in the end the body and mind were one mess which one went on fighting till the end. Sandhya firmly believed that going contrary to natural laws was the root cause of all modern illnesses. As a first step, she thought, she would slow down when she hit 60. Contrary to most people around her who thought 60 was ‘no age’, Sandhya believed in what tradition said-at least in parts. A bit of an oddity she was in this era when women of 58 and 60 became proud, successful candidates of assisted conception, or when ‘dream girls’ of yesteryears came back on the silver screen with renewed oomph, challenging age. Who indeed would feel possessive about her newly appearing grey hair as Nature’s affidavit of experience and wisdom? Sandhya didn’t mind the typical layer of adipose on her belly when she struck her 50s. Eat right, sleep right and exercise right-and don’t worry about the results was her new age ‘fusion wisdom’of the Budha’s teaching with the Gita’s. while in her mid fifties, Sandhya’s conviction grew stronger. Experience is but a ladder to reach higher realms of existence. No point in repetition. Live each experience fully, move on, slow down.
Even as she added a professional side to her personality and learnt early on the EMI-promotion-family interests juggling, Sandhya continued to believe that her mother’s kind of Independence was not to become a tiger riding which one did not know how to get off in the twilight of life.
She considered the various ‘old age’ models available: live all alone, merge with children (or to be more precise the child willing to consider it), live near them but alone, get into a retirement home. Or, more graphically put, the ‘football’ model where one got kicked from child to child, like the grandma next door, or like her cousin the next –door- to- children model-it came with its own baggage of woes, mainly of children being off loaded at all hours. From the experience of friends and relatives, besides her mother’s, staring her in the face, every model came with its ounce, if not, pound, of frustrations, for both sides. Sandhya did not wait to become the topic of discussion for her children. She consulted friends, googled, visited places and on her 60th birthday, had a gift to offer herself.
Persuading a conservative husband had taken some time but he dutifully towed her line. So together they bid good bye to friends and relatives, wound up their belongings, sold the house and commenced a new chapter of their life in a retirement home.
And here she is, at 75, alone, her head all silver, with just small little dark pouches beneath the eyes like her green tea pouches, her dental implants intact, a fine beating heart devoid of clogged arteries, actually pliable knees, a nearly 20-20 vision thanks to all the carotene of yesteryears, a mind clear like an unhindered stream. Like investments reaping interest, her faith in Nature in her youth is bestowing its bonuses! For all the official ‘winding up’, she is still agog with new ideas. In fact her decision not to be saddled with worldly worries was absolutely laudable.
She has given up reading long ago being a firm believer in self learning and discovering. Nor does she need listening to music-she can create her own. News is all rehash, déjà vu. People have nothing new to say. The flower plant in her window sill has a well regulated cycle-grow, flower, make seeds, grow…sandhya’s life has become a cycled one too, though of her own making.
No one has anything to complain. Sandhya has found her own way, as she always has, to live her twilight years with grace and ease. Her savings simple and intact, connecting to others without emotional burdens to anyone.
But wait a minute…Is there a slight note of regret somewhere when her children come to visit her and tell her how difficult life has become? Bringing up kids these days needs the courage of a soldier, the faith of a prophet and the acumen of a businessman. The meltdown had added its woes to their stressed lives. Her children are pinching pennies to live decent lives. ‘hard work never kills’ had always been Sandhya’s favorite motto. Let them learn, like I did, she always thought. But…in an unprotected moment of introspection, Sandhya wonders. Even while being critical about her mother’s need to foolproof life, had she not done the same? What an irony that wanting to avoid the kind of stress she had seen her mother take on herself, Sandhya should choose to become a stressless modern day hermit, a selfish one at that.
It is a revelation to Sandhya with a ‘Self’ like a body builder’s assiduously built muscles. A 6 pack ‘Self’!!! But one with 0 practical value. Even as her mother and the other ‘non models’ paraded before her mind, Sandhya felt her self assurance violently shake, and a great hollowness within herself, hard to fill any more.