A Thousand More Summers: The Unquenchable Wants of an Ageing Soul

 **1 June 2003**

All pretensions to the contrary—in the form of dusty clouds playing with wind and occasional scattered, almost calculable raindrops—are gone.

It is the real, unveiled, unpretentious summer.

It was the most tortuous of the season.

Spotless sky. But who dare to look at it?

The noon blindingly bright. Hot loo winds, like windy fire, hasten to soak up moisture from the trees.

If ever there was wind on fire, it was on this day.

Even the sturdiest of workers, those who brave the weather elements with perfect equanimity of temper, were bogged down by the fiery gusts and took a prolonged rest in the afternoon.

Step into the open and you feel as if you have been encased in a house of glass to be baked beyond recognition.

All discomfort apart, we know that this steaming heat is the boiling of nature's engine in the North Indian plains to run the monsoonal train during July and August.

But till then, it is quite tortuous.

And in this heat I see Tau Devi Singh.

A man with sharp, handsome features and a reddish glow on his face, a very charming policeman during his days.

But then time has the fundamental tendency to undo all such sprouts of beauty, health, vigour, pride and many such derivatives of an enjoyable life.

Old age comes, turns all such beautiful adjectives almost meaningless, at least to the once-beholder of the beauty.

In his early seventies, his health has plummeted down—almost for the final plunge into the dark, gloomy, free-falling sea of mortality.

But mankind is tethered to the peg of existence through such shiny chains, glittering, attractive, titillating, that any talk of having this charming fetter broken and thus enjoying the free ride to the other world (most don't believe it and accept it as just a printed line from the scriptures).

For once having fully feasted upon the most sumptuous courses of food, we later settle for the leftovers.

Still later, for the crumbs.

We degrade ourselves, humiliate ourselves, to settle for those frustrations, anger, pleadings, deriding, chiding moments.

But the man who has seen seventy-plus summers, how agonising it is for him to realise that he might not be there while the treacherous sun would be whiplashing the poor earthen terrain with its beams the next time.

In the upcoming summers also, to remain here on Earth, the man in his old age will certainly get ready to bear a thousand more perilous summers without any complaint.

The journey you have covered so far appears very short.

You even feel cheated (even though you daily see thousands bearing even worse fate), and chosen, particularly picked out for the rake.

The steady glow of life now flickers dangerously.

You fear any merciless whim (even supported by those who pretend to be your heirs).

The caretakers nearest to you, with their steady glow of health, vigour, passion and future, appear the tormentors with only the sole occupation of nullifying the requests of a dying man.

You fret and fume, rave and rant, plead and plead, and cajole to get a fraction of your justified and unjustified demands (for demands are demands. What makes them justified for us also makes them unjustified to those around us).

After all, having mustered one's own will for so long a time, habituated to see things from the active faculties, you still want an iota of the very same.

Oftentimes you cross the limits set by the real needs of a crippled, aged, almost dying man.

It is a harsh fact. But it is very true.

The real needs, the material things enough to keep such a life on the brink of death still clinging to the threads of life, are really few.

But the real needs—we can't even count them as needs in the conventional form—are inside the dying embers.

All ash on the outside.

Yes, all ash on the outside.

The fire in the core becomes its own annihilator.

And those around you, your own, your heirs, your caretakers, oftentimes find you crossing the limits of your poor physicality.

But who can understand?

The wants unquenchable of a ruffled soul, deceased self, crippled ego, humiliated bones.

There are many.

And the old man still finds somehow life worth living, provided the caretakers find time enough and become sincere enough in dispensing their duties.

But the better ones still need to draw themselves out of your attention and ogle at the beautiful game of life still open for them.

And you, in your turn, find it unfaithful.