Longing to live long

When all conditions of one’s life are in the zone of comfort, the desire to live long is justified. There is presumably a maximum life span for the human race established in the genetic material. Homo sapiens is the systematic name used in taxonomy for human species. The term is Latin for ‘Wise man’ introduced in 1758 by the famed Swedish Botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). While 75-80 years was the average life span of a human being a few decades ago, excessive pollution, alcohol and drug abuse, tension in life have brought it down to 65-70 years in our times. Saying that no human being can live 1,000 years is saying the obvious, not to forgot the factor of many diseases which are hard to avoid. Thanks to advances in medical science, not only infant mortality has come down both globally and in India but also, mortality rates among those over 80 years have decreased, reportedly by 1.5 per cent per year during the past few decades.

According to an article published in the renowned science journal Nature, the average age at death among centenarians had not increased over the 50 years and the chances of anyone exceeding 125 in any given year were less than one in 10,000. France, Japan, UK and USA are among the few countries with the largest numbers of super-centenarians (aged more than 110 years). The oldest documented human individual who ever lived was Jeanne Calment, a French woman who died at the age of 122 in 1997 (a fact sourced to internet). It may not be out of place to include here Dr. Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga in Tumakuru who recently turned 111 years and is in reasonably good health.

Unmindful of the maxim traced to Bhagavadgita that death is certain to whoever is born, elders of the land in well-marked sections of society heartily bless the youngsters who bow reverentially, often touching the feet of the elderly, with the words dheergaayushmaan bhava in case of males and dheergasumangali bhava in case of females, meaning ‘live a long life’. Even as the time-honoured custom, exclusively sustained in the country, may kindle the mental energy of the persons thus blessed to look forward to live for many years ahead, it also entails the basic requirement of taking care to comply with the do’s and don’ts in daily life, however it is more easily said than done.

There have been instances of elderly people of the land in their ripe old age choosing to depart on being certain that enough is enough, virtually in an act of euthanasia, not amounting to suicide. They have been living examples of the principle that “life is like a story, not how long it is but how good,” a quote attributed to Seneca, the Roman Philosopher and Statesman (4BC-AD65), who believed that as long as one lives, keep learning how to live.