How old is old?

ABRAHAM was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said: "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me." So records the Genesis in the Old Testament. The holy book goes on to tell us at that time Abraham’s wife Sarah was 90 years old. Today it would be inconceivable that a 100-year-old man would be potent enough to impregnate a woman. Or a woman of 90 could conceive a child. However, liaisons of aged sages and rishis with young women are also the stuff of ancient Indian mythology. What has happened to male virility over the past centuries ?

With rapid industrialisation, growth of big cities and development of rat-race mentality there has been a noticeable decrease in male potency. By the time men retire from their jobs they are mentally and physically exhausted. Their sex life is kaput. The general notion being that as long as a man is capable of sex, he is not old; when he can no longer perform, he is regarded as aged. This remains roughly true today. However, there has been a distinct reversal of the process of ageing in recent years. Both men and women are living longer and in better health than their fathers and mothers. Retiring men from jobs before they are 60 (in the defence service much earlier) is fast becoming an anachronism. We lose physically and mentally fit men of experience by forcing them into idleness. This is unfair and outdated. Earlier this year 60-year-old Lev Sarkisov conquered the Everest, the oldest man to do so. And a woman, Hildergarde Fegrera, made her first parachute jump at 99.

We have to do a lot of rethinking on the phenomenon of ageing and redraw our age charts. Middle-aged men and women of today devote a lot more time looking after their bodies : jogging, walking, swimming, doing yoga asanas, visiting health clinics than men and women did 50 years ago. And the discovery of Viagra has brought a revolution in their sex lives. Our parents were old by the time they were 70; we are not till we pass our mid-eighties.

Songs of Rajasthan

I had never heard of the word Dingal. Nor of a caste called Charan till I met Kesri Singh. He is both a Charan and a translator of Dingal poetry into English. Seventy two-year-old Kesri Singh is a product of Mayo College, Ajmer. He has been member of the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha, secretary of the Swatantra Party and later vice-president of the state unit of the BJP. He was at one time a keen mountaineer and a shikari. Now he leads a quiet life in his village, Roopawas, reading books and translating Dingal (the name of Rajasthan’s literary language).

I learnt much from his An Anthology of Rajasthan Poetry (Books Treasure, Jodhpur). As one would expect from the land which produced Prithvi Raj Chauhan, Rana Sanga and Rana Pratap, there is a lot of veer ras heroic balladry extolling deeds of valour. There is also quite a lot of shringar ras (love poetry) and the usual quota of hymns in praise of deities. Kesri Singh’s anthology has selections from poets from 1000 A.D. to the present times. His translations are flawless.

Large parts of Rajasthan are sand dunes and barren rock. Rangrelo Bithu of Jaisalmer described the landscape:

The low hills are stony, russet and bare
With no trees on them.
Save the stunted thorny cactus.
You wouldn’t hear the call of a peacock
In all the land.
Hyenas, porcupines and monitor lizards
Are the only creatures that you’d come across.

Then we have Dwarkadas Dadhwadiya (1715) describing the onset of the monsoon in the arid land:

The peacocks are calling aloud in the hills;
They spread their gorgeous tails
And dance in joyous ecstasy;
And the raucous croaking of frogs
fills the ponds and pools of the countryside
replenished by the rains.
The thirst of the woodlands has been quenched;
The gods have been kind;
The cuckoos pour forth their dulcet melody;
And the low hanging clouds rest on the mountain-tops
The west wind blows a steady breeze;
The scorching paths are now cool
And the laud all around is clothed in velvet green
The monsoons are here, my liege,
And my beloved wife
Pines for me in my distant home;
O Ajit, Lord of Maroo, consider all this,
And grant me leave to go home.

Rajput chieftains fought endless wars against each other and against Muslim invaders. Their towns were often laid waste. Pasayat Gadan, a contemporary of Maharana Kumbha (mid-15th century), describes the devastation caused:

Where once there had been palaces
Dust and ashes now blow,
Driven by gusts of wind;
Where horses used to be tethered,
There now sit undisturbed
The deer of the wild forests;
Where there had been
Busy and bustling centres
Of trade and commerce,
Owls have made their nests
And hatched their young ones;
And in the woodlands
Where once cattle and sheep
Had grazed fearlessly,
The tigress has given birth to her cubs
And rears them unhampered.

There are quite a few examples of religious poetry, including those of Dadu, Mirabai and Sant Jambeshwar, founder of the Bishnoi sect. Also proverbs, riddles and folk wisdom. Take for example:

Sweet are the joyous calls
Of the peacocks,
And so Saint-like
The motionless stance of the herons;
But just ask the little fish,
As also the snakelings,
How ruthless are the doings
Of these hypocrites!
What praise does it merit
The beauty of a damsel,
The excellence of a verse,
Of the piercing virtue
Of a bowman’s dart —
Unless it affects the eye or the mind,
Or the body entire,
Leaving one lost in ecstasy
Or writhing in pain
Under its spell?

P for Pakistan

A visitor from Pakistan was taking a stroll in Nehru Park enjoying the greenery and the flowers. He needed to empty his bladder but could not find a urinal.He could hold out no longer and went behind the bushes. Just as he was undoing his fly buttons, a policeman caught him. "What do you think you are doing?" demanded the constable.

"I want to pee," replied the visitor. "I am from Pakistan and I don’t know where to go. Please help me out."

"Okay follow me," ordered the constable. "I’ll show you a place across the road with more greenery and flowers. You can pee there as much as you like."

So the constable took him across the road to a garden, greener and more full of flowers than Nehru Park. The Pakistani emptied his bladder, thanked the constable and asked whose garden is this?"

"Bhai Sahib, this is the garden of the Pakistan Embassy."

(Contributed by G.S. Boela, New Delhi)

Braying competition

Banta scolded his son: "You are a donkey." His son replied, "But Dadaji (grandfather) called me ‘Tum gadhey key bachchey ho’ (You are son of a donkey).

(Contributed by J.P. Singh Kaka, Bhopal)