An Ode To Aging

singing am aging grace. thoughts from aboard the long train running.

I hate it when people call me uncle. I AM UNKAL. Get?

I am 55. I have no idea what it means to be that age. I still grin like a kid and I sulk like a child. I happily try out new things. However, I often talk like I have considerable experience of being a geriatric. I have none. Not yet. But I do have vicarious experience and quite extensive at that.

Body has long ceased proudly singing 'Like A Rock'. Mind has wandered so far afield that there is little hope of it returning. And what of Soul? Soul's in Korea; South I think. What??? I don't hear you bitching about my spelling when I write Unkal, do I?

You know that hoary old cliché, “age is a number”? It is indeed; it numbs you.

You get to that age when reality bites. With all the force of false teeth. And arrogant, bratty apples often steal yours for fun.

No, I don’t have false teeth. Not yet.

My father is 91. He doesn’t have false teeth. Reality bites him with real teeth. I see the hurt in his eyes. Every day.

42. If you know your Douglas Adams, 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything else. I’m 55. I’m the universal question to all sorts of answers; sort of like the anti Finagle Factor.

Body has long ceased proudly singing 'Like A Rock'. Mind has wandered so far afield that there is little hope of it returning. And what of Soul? Soul's in Korea; South I think. What’s that you shrilly point out? I don't hear you bitching about my spelling when I write Unkal, do I? Oh! I already wrote this, did I? Lapse of Reason (and Memory) is no longer Momentary.

People show you an uncharacteristic politeness when your head is lined with grey hair as if you’re fragile. I smile at the kindness of such strangers towards me. Inside I howl in mirth. Decades of living haven’t broken me; their behaviour as usual without this special consideration most definitely won’t. I am, however, grateful. I only wish people were polite to everyone by default.

I am 55. My body is a blunderland.

I was at a rock music festival in Oslo just a few years back and I watched Slayer play. This was part of their farewell tour. Digress with an aching leap to 2025. Slayer’s still around ironically paying tribute to Ozzy and Black Sabbath at their final gig. Apparently nothing can slay them and lay them to rest, not even themselves.

At that same gig there was me, an overweight, aging brown man of medium height going berserk headbanging surrounded by fine specimens of Viking youth and hulking presence who stood unmoving. Strange. And hilarious. I ended up skipping the next day of the festival. My back had got way more than a spinal tap.

Agatha Christie, that fine student of human nature, wrote that it is the old who will cling on fiercely to life however miserable it is while the young are more likely to give up easily.

As people age I often see them trying hard to be cool (or do I mean chill?) and so they throw phrases like “yo bro” at young people only to be told that it's “dawg” not “bro”. Then they feel like shit. Dawgshit. Frankly, I have no idea what counts for cool. I’ve never been bothered to be in with it. When someone says “let's hang”, my horrible mind queries “where's the noose?”. No chill from me. I am hot. I’ve always been. Don’t give me that look. I mean I sweat easily.

You reach an age when those three magic words are “I am tired”. And people let you be. Magic. Inertia turns into a dying duck with one missing wing; there’s only inertia of rest. Motion is fuelled, often erratically, by anti-constipation meds.

I am 55. Damn the light at the end of the tunnel, I can't even see the wretched tunnel. And I got my eyes checked very recently.

Aging is a crossing of a bridge, one that is crumbling. Maybe. And bridges break, you know; they do that. Often; and more so in our Indian states of Bihar and Gujarat apparently.

Now here’s a sobering thought to cure all hangovers and hangups. You live long enough when you see more deaths than births, more wreckages than marriages. That’s when it hits you. Age is not a number, man. It does not numb you. No, it does not.