My recent piece, on "Self-help in old age" brought out a few responses showing sympathy and consolation presuming that I actually was craving for praise. But after reading the "Middle" by my role model blogger Bikram Vohra in The Times of India, Mumbai edition, ( reproduced below), I now think that I too indeed have been neglected!

Ageist Party

" I said I didn’t want to go but the family insisted so I got into uncomfortable clothes and went to the party. Younger people have absolutely no idea how to handle us older lot. They think if they put you in a comfy chair their job is done. The host walks up and says, oh so nice uncle came, what will he have. Firstly, I am not your flipping uncle and secondly, cut this third-party talk, all six feet of me sitting here, talk to me directly.

Then they get you a drink and, if it is alcohol, they pour such a small one you could serve it in a teaspoon. At which point a young lady to whom you have just been introduced as your daughter’s father is doing that mandatory good manners ‘hanging in there for 90 seconds’ act and to fill in the pointless silence says hope the snacks are not too spicy for you. Darling I could not only out-drink you under the table I can also out-spice you under that same table.

Then they patronise. Hope the music is not too loud, should we tone it down.

Most irritatingly, they also talk loudly and slowly and they see this as stunning good manners. Stop yelling, young man.

You wonder what you are doing there seeing as how they never invited you directly, it is always the kids saying they asked to bring you along, like a stepney and it really bugs you and now you have finished the teaspoon in one sip and no one is refilling it because no one thinks you will have another teaspoon of whisky. You sit and you sog, the big ignore broken occasionally by sundry folks coming to pay their respects. And you are thinking stuff your respect, I came to have a good time.

There is an intriguing, heated discussion among four or five of them and they are using cheerful expletives and looks like fun so you heave yourself out of the chair and you join them, all set with your two penny worth of opinion and because of you entering the fray the debate dies in the water and every one kind of goes into such tedious politeness you want to use expletives.

So you slink back to your chair and wish you were home watching Netflix or reading a book, so much more fun than younger people being nice, nothing is more dreary. Finally the ordeal is over, you have been used as the excuse to leave early, everyone understands (aaaarghhhh) and on the way back you are asked if you enjoyed the evening. No."

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 Self-Help in Old Age

Of late, I feel a certain void in my  life as nobody praises me to my face for all the good qualities I possess and exhibit.  When I was in service in semi-government offices and later as faculty in management training/education institutions, I used to receive,  expectedly of course,   encomiums about my intelligence and oration showered by  my subordinates and  students respectively. Now even the group of senior citizens  I meet in our Cooperative Housing Society  have stopped  praising  my erudition in Hindi despite  being a Tamil.

All the above notwithstanding,  what disappoints me the most is that  my wife too does not appreciate  my astute political analysis vis -a -vis Karnataka elections or my insightful interpretation of the New Education Policy 2020 or NCERT’s rationalization of school syllabi or  my profound musical heritage. The last talent extends to all forms of music ranging from classical Carnatic to Hindustani to film music and  even the  jingles in TV advertisements  like the one on Rajasthan’s march of progress.      

During our morning ritual of sipping coffee  at the dining table when the social distance between us is narrow, the wife sits like Rodin’s statue ”The Thinker”. The invigorating coffee sets me  on my talents exhibiting one or the other of the many things mentioned above. and she sits there as if to prove the old adage that No Man is a hero to his Woman. At the most,  her response on these occasions is confined  to listing my  tasks for the day such as  buying  vegetables and groceries including broomstick and mop cloth or getting the Society electrician to repair the non-functional geyser switch in the bathroom.  As if this was not bad enough, she would ask me to secure  the dhoti tightly with a belt so that I don’t walk like Mammooti and Mohandas in Malayalam films always holding one end of the dhoti.

This sense of deep desperation  has landed me in  a new pastime  during  my sleepless hours on the nights when I compose  in the third person singular what I crave  to hear about myself  from others. I find this a jolly good exercise for semi-insomniacs.  For instance, I would imagine that my wife would tell others that  I am the only person with the gift to appreciate the different beats of the dholak player in film music  while others go for the voice of the singer, the beauty of the lyrics, or the symphony of the instruments.  Similarly, I visualize her admitting to others  that but for me  she would not have  learned the use  of correct prepositions  and other English grammatical niceties. I even would imagine as if she  praises me  for my immaculate and  cultivated dignity, respect, and politeness in my conversations with others, especially with those from her side of the family.  

Now,  tell me, readers,  am I wrong in presenting to  myself those adoring  words of  praise for me but don’t  get them anymore  and therefore choose the  “ Atma Nirbhar “route to compose them myself?