THERE comes a time in your life when you find your address book not only getting hopelessly out of date but the entries themselves often unreadable from all those cuttings and cross-cuttings. Time to acquire a new one and re-write your address book.

My current address book — an elegant leather-bound affair gifted by an airline — dates back twenty years to the days I was a senior government official. Now at 75, leading a retired life, I finally have to face the fact that a new address book is overdue; most of the old entries — of colleagues in service and of business acquaintances — are relevant to more. And more so with such frequent changes in Delhi’s telephone numbers.

So I succumb to buying a new address book, a more modest affair, sporting a plastic cover. Presumably this would be the last address book I’d keep.

And I soon discover that re-writing an address book wasn’t turning out such a routine chore I had anticipated. The process signified some sort of a watershed in facing the last period of my life.

Often an old entry would bring in a flood of memories; of the good times we had with someone. Another entry would evoke a feeling of regret for missing out on better relations. And then there were umpteen entries of people who had blossomed into celebrities in public affairs or as captains of industry. Yet all contact between them and me had ceased over the years; apparently they had felt no need to sustain those contacts, and this brought on a sense of melancholy. And there were people from the distant past with whom there was often nothing to give to each other anymore.

But what made re-writing particularly painful was scoring out names of friends who had died since then. A noted urologist friend, know for his concern for patients and full of cheer. He would say, he’d take care of my enlarged prostate when a surgical intervention was due. Perforce I’ve to look for someone else. He died at 50, of a disease he knew was incurable. Yet I wonder at the courage with which his doctor-wife has gone on living and growing.

Another friend, a journalist, whose company was fun and most stimulating, died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 54. That was shocking, as till that fatal morning he seemed so lively and physically active.

Indeed, going through various entries of the old address book, I discover to my dismay that nearly half of the friends of my youth are no more.

Another indicator of one’s decline: of the recent entries, a whole lot pertain to medical specialists — dentists, ophthalmologists, orthopaedic surgeons, cardiologists, ENT specialist, physical therapists.

In a way I am glad I am still alive, and possibilities of new adventures in life aren’t fully foreclosed. And encouragingly, many of the entries being transferred from the old address book are of people younger than I am. I hope I won’t have to say goodbye to them.

In re-writing a new address book in later years, you’ve a chance to relive your life, see where you have been and where you are going. Your life flashes before you.