The Art of Growing Old Disgracefully

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam

A friend called last week. He was breathless. Not because of age, but because he had just returned from bungee jumping. He is sixty-two. I made the appropriate sounds of admiration. Inside, I was mostly wondering whether his life insurance was updated.

Another friend went surfing in Sri Lanka. A third one sent me photographs from a sailing trip in the Maldives. He looked tanned and heroic, standing at the helm. His wife, who messaged me separately, said he spent most of the trip being seasick below deck. But the photographs were excellent.

This, I have come to understand, is what growing old looks like in our generation. It looks like adventure. It looks like a bucket list. It looks like people in their sixties doing things they should probably have done in their twenties. They have the added bonus of a cardiologist’s number saved on speed dial.

I am not immune to this. Something stirs in me when I hear these stories. Desire, perhaps. Or possibly just old-fashioned envy dressed in better clothes.

My son, however, is not stirred. He is worried. He heard about my plan to trek to Kilimanjaro next year and sat me down for what I can only describe as a very polite intervention. Having done the trek, he knew what it took to reach the summit. He used phrases like ‘keeping your age in mind’ and ‘the body’s limitations.’ He showed me statistics. I showed him photographs of seventy-year-olds who had summited Everest. He said that was not the point. I said it was exactly the point.

The truth is that ageing is a peculiar business. Nobody teaches you how to do it. You spend the first forty years of your life being told to grow up. Then, suddenly, you are expected to also grow old. Without a manual and without a mentor. You have only your friends on WhatsApp. They either forward health tips about the benefits of turmeric and coconut oil. Or they share photographs of themselves jumping off cliffs.

Dignity is the word people use most often in this context. Grow old with dignity. It sounds noble. It also sounds, if I am being honest, a little like giving up. As if dignity is a comfortable armchair you are supposed to lower yourself into and then stay put.

I have spent four decades working in tribal and rural communities. I have watched people grow old in ways that were unrelated to bucket lists. Their ageing was entirely about continuing to be useful. An old Jenukuruba man I knew kept walking forest paths well into his eighties. He did not walk to prove something to anyone. He walked because the forest still provided the herbs his community needed. He was one of the few who could identify them. His ageing was not a project. It was simply a continuation.

That is the distinction we keep missing. We have turned ageing into a performance. Either we perform surrender, retreating gracefully into golf and grandchildren. Or we perform defiance, strapping ourselves to elastic cords and falling off bridges to prove the body has more years in it. Both are performances. Both are, in their own way, about what ageing looks like to others.

What ageing actually feels like is a quieter, more interesting thing. It feels like knowing which battles matter and which ones you can let pass. It feels like being less afraid of silence. It feels like the pleasure of a good conversation with someone younger. You realise you have something real to give them. It’s not advice exactly, but something harder to name. Perspective, perhaps. Or simply the reassurance that confusion is not a sign of failure. That it has always been this confusing and people have always found a way through.

I have not decided about Kilimanjaro. My son has not decided to stop worrying. Both positions are reasonable. What I do know is that the mountain is not really the point. The point is to remain curious. To remain in motion, even if the motion slows. To remain connected to something larger than the small, contracting world that ageing can sometimes become if you are not careful.

The bungee jumping friend has already booked his next trip. Skydiving, apparently. Over the ocean. He sent me the link and asked if I was interested. I told him I would think about it. I am       thinking about it.

Growing old with dignity does not mean growing old quietly. It means growing old honestly. Knowing what you are doing, and why. Choosing your mountains, real and otherwise, with clear eyes. Make peace with the fact that some of those mountains will be climbed. Others will simply be admired from a respectful distance. Both are valid. Both are, in the end, entirely human.

[Dr. R. Balasubramaniam is the Founder of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM). ‘The Lighter Side’ is a series of satirical articles meant to bring a smile by highlighting the funny side of everyday life.]