LIFE ABOVE 60!
Pinterest
“Hey, when are you going to behave like a mother-in-law?”
The above comment hit me like a ton of bricks as I stood
onstage, watching my only daughter flashing her million-dollar smile at the
guests with her brand-new husband. It was a moment we had waited for all our
lives, and suddenly, the sibilant stage whisper assailed my eardrums. It
penetrated over the sonorous pandemonium of the ‘nadaswaram’, which often
sounds like a nasal yet tuneful trumpet, if, and only if, played in the right
spirit. On occasion, the said instrument has started on a particular note, and
then, akin to a drunken bee, has meandered all over, hitting all the wrong notes,
and the listeners’ ears, unmercifully.
The sibilant whisper came again.
“Ah, well, you will soon need to behave like a grandmum!”
My expression (and I possess quite a few!) must have been
classic. How do you respond to a comment like that? In hindsight appear all the
best rejoinders, much after the horse has fled the stable, leaving the door
wide open.
By the time I composed my face into a painful smile, she
had already moved on, a battleship of a woman, all set to dole out well meaning
(?) free advice, judging by the confused expressions she left in her wake.
If optimism were a person, it would probably take the
form of my 88-year-old mother who not only sees the good side of people, even
when they do not have one, but also believes in “forgetting and forgiving”,
exhorting her children to see the sunshine rather than the storm clouds, even
those that have broken over her very head.
The one gene she has passed on to us, her three
daughters, is that of remaining childlike, be it at forty, fifty or sixty-three,
which is the grand old age that I am at. Hence, all of us consider age just a
number to be bandied about, not to be taken seriously, to be mentioned more to
shock, because, let us face it, none of us look our age, modesty be blasted!
Strange is it that often family members take the wind out
of our sails. When I was fifteen, a grandaunt told me blatantly, “You are
overweight. You were such a pretty baby. Now you don’t look nice at all.” At
that age, one’s emotions are on a perpetual see-saw. I went home and cried
myself to sleep. As Marti Olsen Laney put it, “Feelings are everywhere. Be
gentle.”
The next day I embarked on a strict regimen – no milk or
dairy, no sweets or oily food. Our maid and our dog both turned buxom, while I
shed all those extra pounds.
Half a century later. I look back on those days and
wonder why I was so touchy. Today, I am content in my own skin, warts,
blotches, freckles and all! I know myself inside out. I am a trifle crazy
(blame my family and friends for that!), adventurous and trigger-happy, a
Sagittarius in all its eccentric glory. The 50s and the 60s have only liberated
me, made me even more averse to be tied down. I love my own path and woe betide
anyone who strives to jostle me off it.
At 63, blessings surround me.
I have two mothers from whom I have learnt many things
which have honed my persona. I call my husband’s mother my mother-in-love for
there are no ‘in-laws’ or ‘outlaws’ in our family.
My Army husband sleeps with one eye open because he has
no idea what my versatile brain will churn out. Luckily for him, all those gory
ideas that materialise within get translated into the thriller stories that I
write with gusto. However, as he says, “You never know when she will put one of
those ideas into practice!” Jokes part, he is the wind beneath my wings helping
me to soar high, but keeps a rein which keeps me tethered when he finds me
hurtling towards disaster.
Vecteezy
How time has flown! My sisters and I are all over fifty.
Gone are the days when I would sit them (and my cousins) down in a dim-lit room
and scare the living daylights out of them with my blood-curdling tales. Today
they have caught up with me and take turns to mother me, or chide me, as the
situation warrants. The older I grow, the more blessed I am to have them and
their better halves in my life.
Our mother, of course, cannot believe that we are in our
fifties and sixties as we refuse to behave as if we are. She would be a fine
one to talk, given her irreverence and joie de vivre, which are both legendary!
Life after 60, I repeat, is liberating. The age when men turn
a dashing pepper and grey upstairs, with a hint of a pot belly making its
presence felt, slowly but steadily, and women catch a glimpse of a stray
wrinkle or a silver hair in their own once lustrous manes.
When my greys graduated to burgundy and later dark brown,
onlookers would be a trifle confused. For the greys would wax and wane at
regular intervals. I am not one to proclaim, “I will ‘dye’ only once!” The
fifties gave me the freedom to stay elegantly (how I wish!) grey or make a
beeline to the nearest salon.
CartoonStock
Menopause came early, as the thirties saw me lose my
uterus after myriad fibroids took firm possession of it. The writer in me lost
no time, or sleep, over the experience. I put it down in my blog, aptly titled
‘Deep Ties’ under the name ‘Hysterics Over a Hysterectomy’. The freedom that
the procedure brought was inexplicable, except in two words: No periods.
Period!
Etsy
My 50s and 60s were equally eventful. I went from
blissfully myopic (to the extent that my better half proclaimed that I had only
seen half of him when I agreed to marry him!) to almost perfect vision.
My first cataract surgery was a pleasurable experience. As
I lay back, a trifle apprehensive, all I could feel was water flowing into my
eye and a host of glorious colours. Before I knew it, the procedure was over. I
came out grinning for all I was worth, much to the astonishment of my husband
waiting outside with bated breath.
“You may read and watch TV!” the doctor remarked. I took
her advice with a pinch of salt and decided to listen to music instead. That is
when Cold Play came into my life, and one particular song fascinated me. My next
post on my surgery was titled ‘A Sky Full of Stars’, another entry on my blog.
My second cataract surgery was done less than a month
back. I saw fewer colours, and my grin was not as wide, but the procedure was
smooth. I came out, thankful that unlike Ravana, I have only one head and two
eyes. Imagine the plight of having procedures on ten pairs of eyes. Perhaps, if
cataracts had been discovered at the time, the Lankan king would have had very
little time, and inclination, to abduct Sita, because he would have been busy putting
drops in his eyes throughout his waking hours. The Ramayana would have lost its
climax, no doubt.
Once again, I sat back while my better half pampered the
life out of me, and this time serendipity worked in my favour. I found the
mesmerizing short stories of Somerset Maugham on YouTube Music, narrated most
wonderfully, and I could not have been happier. When I was up and about, my
blog was enriched with yet another post on my latest surgery – ‘An Eye (Lens)
for an Eye’.
My life as an Army wife, where I juggled school, Army
get-togethers, Family Welfare Meets and Ladies’ Clubs, was frenetic. However, now
is the time when I am the busiest ever. As the Executive Director of an
ICSE/ISC school, my brain keeps ticking, sometimes at midnight, on ways to make
school life more fulfilling and fun for our students.
Being with children, watching their faces light up when
they greet you, the handmade cards they make for you on occasions, the joy when
they climb mountains and attain pinnacles, the tears when things go awry, and
above all, the zest they possess which goes a long way – all these things keep
me on Cloud 9.
We have only one daughter, who is the reason why
we live, smile and breathe, the sunshine in our lives, the mother of two
adorable cherubs, our two grandchildren, who are nine and six. To them, we are
Mooma and Nana. When we gaze at them, a receptacle of love refills itself deep
within our hearts. We meet them two months in a year and have all the fun we
can, just so that we can fill the ten months that follow with amazing memories
of everything they do and say.
Comments
Post a Comment