At sixty-four, T.S. Eliot's lines from his poem "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" resonate with me.
"...No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me...."
Well, if not for white flannel trousers with the bottoms rolled, I have for the past fifteen months lolled mostly in short pants and old T-shirts.
And instead of the beach, I find myself on Golden Pond.
Growing up is challenging, but growing old can be a delight going by my immediate past.
One suffers love-sickness, money-sickness and fame-sickness when young and just sickness when old. "Same difference", as today's young would say. So you swallow your share of tablets, exercise regularly and watch what you eat. No problems.
On introspection, I have realized that the real challenge of growing old lies mainly in the psyche.
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.." - John Milton, Paradise Lost.
Some tell me I have under-achieved both in fame and fortune. I don't know whether or not that is true. But even if true, I do not feel the sting.
Au contraire, I sometimes wonder, whether fame and fortune would have allowed my current equipoise.
I shall not pretend that I did not suffer the rat race in the three decades into my sixties. But the commitment was just an inch deep, leaving no scars behind.
Perhaps my participation in the rat race was somewhat disinterested because I dealt with deep emotional trauma—a situation much harder to deal with than growing up, down, sideways or old.
And then, over these past months, I have found my angle of repose.
I discovered the joys of growing inwards, well beyond the vicissitudes of growing up or growing old.
Growing inwards is not easy, nor is it hard. It just is.
I came to this state of being by allowing myself to do what I should have done in my youth and adulthood - embarking on a study of philosophy and literature.
My education in technology and management and my profession in marketing communication and martech are outward-looking pursuits.
The reading of literature and philosophy remained, with me, leisure-time pursuits.
Over the past fifteen months, as I switched my priorities around, a new growth path opened.
The pursuit of literature and philosophy requires no external validation. But, at the same time, it is an endeavour that opens up vistas where you are one with all the world - everyone and everything in it - across space and time.
I write this not to advocate that the only path to peace is through a deep dive in philosophy or literature. Instead, my insight is that every one of us has a natural state of being. Yet, very often, we do not recognize or act on this natural self. Thus, I studied at IIT and IIM not because I had any natural inclination to technology and management but simply because I got in! Nor did I spend decades in marketing communication because I have a deep love for advertising but because it was well-paying and somewhat glamorous in those bygone times.
I am grateful that I, at last, have found my calling. It fills my day (even in these vexed times) with daily discoveries and adventures.
I realize there must be a fortunate few who find their calling early in life. Are they the ones who make great things happen? Perhaps. But that is not the point. At whatever age you get to the shore of this Golden Pond, however long you are there, it elevates your life.
Behind the repose, I feel these days, could be a much deeper truth.
A sentiment expressed, as only Ghalib can, in the following couplet:
बे ख़ुदी बे सबब नहीं ग़ालिब
कुछ तो है जिसकी पर्दा दारी है
- मिर्ज़ा ग़ालिब
Be khudi be sabab nahi ghalib
kuch to hai jis ki parda dari hai
- Mirza Ghalib
"This rapture is not without reason O Ghalib
something hides behind the veil."
Whether this rapture of mine reaches the point where to paraphrase Paramhansa Ramkrishna, I become a salt doll that leaps into the Golden Pond and become one with it; I do not know.
Kabir summed up the "salt doll" state in this pithy doha:
जिस मरनै थै जग डरै, सो मेरे आनंद।
कब मरिहूँ कब देखिहूँ, पूरन परमानंद॥
- Kabir
Jise marne the jag dare, so mere anand.
Kab amrunh, kab dekhun, puran parmanand>
"While the world fears death, I eagerly await that eternal bliss."
Far from being confident of reaching Kabir's state, I might even lose my current angle of repose. Post the pandemic; the material world could catch up with me with a vengeance. Or the physical depredations of old age deepen and wreak havoc on my balance.
Even so, my current state, I believe, would have furnished me the kind of dauntless courage that Dylan Thomas advocates to fight the anomie and the agony.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
