Lamenting old age
By Khushwant Singh

YOU can’t do very much about old age. It creeps on you at a snail’s pace to start with, then gathers speed in your middle age, and before you know, you are an old man or an old woman. Symptoms appear on different people at different times: for instance, some people start greying in their thirties, others in their fifties or sixties; some manage to have black hair into their seventies. Many dye their hair and beards to appear younger than they are and manage to fool others for some time but not themselves.

There are changes in the body which make you aware of the relentless march of time. Teeth begin to decay. Every time you visit your dentist, he yanks one out till all are gone and he fits you with dentures looking whiter than the originals. Once again the ages when people start losing their teeth vary enormously. Some lose them in their forties, others go to their graves or funeral pyres in their 80s or 90s taking all their 32 originals with them. The same applies to the eyes and ears, some wear glasses while still at school; others need no visual aids till the end of their days. Some begin to be hard of hearing by middle age and need hearing aids; others never have hearing problems.

The most important milestone in peoples’ lives is the state of their libido. Both men and women regard declining interest in sex as sure indicators of ageing. With men this is more dramatic than with women who can enjoy sex long after their menopause. Men continue to fantasise about it all their lives but sometime after they have completed the biblical span of 70 years, they find their bodies unable to fulfil their desire. And they have to accept that they are into old age and fun has gone out of their lives. This is what men need most — as Nazeer Akbara Bedi puts it:

(Of all things that happen, the worst is old age

May Allah never afflict a lover with old age.)

Men never give up hope of recovering their youth. They try all sorts of elixirs, aphrodisiacs and now Viagra to retain their potency. They may succeed in restoring a little self-confidence and ability to perform. The quest for a permanent youth-restorer goes on and on:

Jawaanee Jaatee Rahee
Aur hamein pata bhee na lagaa
Isee ko dhoond rahey hain
Kamaar jhukaae hooey

(Youth fled and I did not even know;

It is my youth I keep looking for

With my back bent low).

Women find it harder than men to accept old age. They are prone to lying about it and use cosmetics liberally to hide their wrinkles. It takes a brave man to go on paying compliments to an old flame in her old age:

Begum, teyrey husun kay hukkey mein aanch naheen
Ik hum hee hain keh phir bhee gurguraae jaatey hain

(Begum there is no fire left in the hubble-bubble of your beauty, it is only I who still keeps drawing on it).

Very reluctantly men give up hope of recovering their youth. The French comedian and singer Maurice Chevalier very rightly remarked "When you hit seventy, you eat better, you sleep more soundly, you feel more active than when you were thirty. Obviously, it is healthier to have women on your mind than on your knees".

Chevalier also had the ultimate answer:"Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative".

Danial Latifi

A great gentleman and a great bore — that is how I thought of my friend of over sixty years, Danial Latifi, who died recently in Delhi. Good people tend to be somewhat tiresome and Danial was goodness personified. Having made this unkind introduction, let me also add that I vastly admired and loved him because he never lied, or ever said a hurtful thing about anyone. There won’t be another Danial Latifi.

I got to know Danial in my years in Lahore (1940-47). He was the son of Sir Alma Latifi, I.C.S., one of a distinguished clan comprising the Tyebjis, Futtehallys and Salim Ali. He was a graduate from Oxford University and a Barrister-at-law. Everyone expected him to start practice at the High Court and end up as a Judge. Instead he joined the Communist Party of India and was in the bad books of the police and the C.I.D. One night he was caught pasting subversive posters on city walls. He spent a while in jail. After release he shifted to the party headquarters. He lived on daal-roti. He was always lean and fragile; he became leaner and frailer: his long nose appeared longer — he had a vulpine profile. I persuaded him to move in with me. I had reason to regret my offer of hospitality. Every evening as I sat down to enjoy my whisky, Danial, who was a teetotaller, would start an endless monologue on Marxism, class struggle, imperialism et al. It ruined the taste of my good Scotch. One day when my cook and I were away, my mother turned up unexpectedly. She took Danial to be my servant, reprimanded him for sitting on the sofa and ordered him to get her luggage from the tonga and bring it up. He did so without a word. When my mother discovered who he was, she was most embarrassed. He often teased her about it.

It was in my flat that he met Sarah Itiyarah, a Syrian Christian teacher in Kinnaird College for Women and as ardent a Communist as he. They fell in love and got married. Danial would often smile but rarely laugh. Sarah did neither. They were admirably suited to each other. The only thing they shared in common was a passion for Marxism. They had no children.

After Partition, the Latifis moved to Delhi. My father gave them a flat in the block next to mine. Once I told him that I was pestered by uninvited visitors. He got me a spy glass to put in my door so that I could see the visitor and if I did not want to be seen, I need not open the door. Danial was the first victim of his own gift.

Danial did not change except that he began to drink in moderate quantities. Once I ran into him at a reception hosted by the French Embassy. He had a plateful of food in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. By then he had become quite an authority on Islamic law. I made the mistake of asking him how he reconciled to imbibing liquor with Islam. He proceeded to explain at great length, quoting verses from the Koran that the holy book did not forbid taking alcohol. And all this while we were being jostled and buffeted by the crowd milling around us.

Danial and Sarah did not live together very much. So when she died, he was not shattered. He was not designed for domesticity. So I was surprised when I heard a few years ago that he had married again — this time a Princess of royal blood, a descendant of the great Mughals.

Azhar’s case

The players, the journalists, big and small
I have decided to sue them all.
And why the hell shall I quit?
It is a conspiracy, aimed at my fall.
Haven’t you my lifestyle over the years seen?
Where’s the need for me to come clean?
And what’s it to me if the game is in utter disgrace
I shall be the last man to hide my face.
Cronje is a liar and a cheat,
His is the cry of utter defeat,
Cronje is a man totally distraught
Who, by all the communities of this secular country
Should be jointly fought.
And never should we spare a thought
For the street urchins who gibe around
Calling each other Azhar and Kapil
And run all about the ground.

(Contributed by Kuldip Salil, Delhi)