Lifestyle Transition

Attendance last week at a 70^th birthday ceremony in Hebbal and a visit to a retirement home in Devanahalli where my friend in his mid-eighties and his wife have shifted, helped me observe certain lifestyle changes in them. The Hebbal friend and his wife bade farewell to hair-dye once and for all, and looked a warehouse of wisdom and knowledge in their sparkling silver grey hair.

My senior friend in Devanahalli whom I don’t particularly remember ever having worn a sweater even in winter and always in half-sleeves with chest button open for free flow of breeze, greeted me, an afternoon, wearing a full sweater. His pre-dawn run of 8 to 10 rounds everyday has yielded place to just a few rounds of walk, and very much after sunrise. These triggered me to gauge how much my own lifestyle has changed with age.

Discussions with the likes of me these days no longer revolve around the latest movies or fashion trends. They mostly concern health issues. “I undergo touch-therapy for my BP, and it is normal now,” asserts one. Another says, “Through WhatsApp I got to know of a herbal decoction, and that is working wonderful for my cholesterol.” “I have a simple solution for both, as also for …,” joins yet another espousing his brand.

In one sweep someone propounds remedy to all these with regular pranayama and meditation. Another introduces the relevance of religion and spirituality. Yet another makes inroads to Vedas and Upanishads. This goes on till a drizzle, unruly wind or mosquitoes drive us seniors to our respective abodes.

Outing in the earlier days meant picnics and vacations. Now it manifests in the form of attending 60, 70 and 80^th landmark-birthday celebrations. Sometimes it also includes visiting friends to get first-hand account of how they fare in retirement homes.

During the morning walk, it is no more listening to Rafi, Kishore, or Lataji or their counterparts in South. It is now trying to keep pace with Challakere Brothers’ Rudram, Chamakam so that at religious functions you can join the chorus with confidence rather than make lip movements.

Certain self-imposed regulations on diet that you inflicted on yourself since your last health check, yield place to relaxation initially, and total abandon thereafter. A WhatsApp message for seniors, “Enjoy the rest of your life,” comes handy to submit to the dictates of your mind rather than of the body.

As a septuagenarian or octogenarian, you can proclaim from the top of the terrace, “Everyday Holiday”, to display signs of total bliss, but life is never without a grouse. Higher premium for life or health insurance, the ever-increasing costs, more so of medicines, unmatched by pro rata increase in pension or interest rates, keeps you occupied, not to speak of your unfailing presence at every free health-check up point in the vicinity, be it at every other day. Checking and re-checking your bank account to rest on your back that it is not hacked after all, is another daily engagement.

In the office-going days when your children were still amenable, you passed on to them your dog-collar shirts and baggy pants that were way past the fashion, and they innocently accepted them. In a similar vein, you might guess that they now pass on theirs to you. Far from it. They discourage. It is you (read I) who chance to look at the clothes they have dumped into the ‘Goodwill’ bag for donation, and smuggle one or two into your suitcase.

But it so happens that your children know you no less than you know them. While my younger son lets go such acts, the elder one handles it differently. “So Appa, everything packed,” he would ask on the eve of our travel back home, sounding casual and concerned. “Yeah, yeah,” you hasten, having passed the audit. “And how many of the Goodwill clothes have managed to find their way into your suitcase,” he asks you catching you off guard, and insists on them to their original place.

Yes, the solitary exception where ‘habits die hard’ is yet to allow ‘lifestyle transition’ get past it. And exceptions prove the rule.