OLD ABOVE SIXTY IS HASTLE FREE YUVA DAY

Prof . Joseph K Alexander

Anthyalankavu St. Mary’s church is a small parish near Pathanamthitta. It was celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary and honouring its 17 members above seventy five. I was a speaker in that public meeting.   I Thought I would give pep to the seventeen frail weak, bent, stooping and trotting guests called for honour. I said to day man is expected to live up to a full 120 years or a little more as decided by God (Genesis 6:3)  .  So you are all in your youth. Arise, stand erect and be agile and vigorous to live another 50 years in this world. You can do that with God on your side to help.

Adam lived up to 930 and his son Seth 912 years.  They were all God’s children who lead upright down to earth life in Aden and around.  Later Adam and his tribe mingled with others and became wicked. God decided to destroy all of them.  He created a flood and everything on earth were drowned  to death except Noah and his children and a male and female of every living animate – men, animals, birds, liana beings, trees and plants. God gave the earth to these survivors and blessed them to multiply and enjoy. But in course of time they also became wicked. So God didn’t want men made in his own image to lead such wicked lives for so long. He said “man hereafter shall live only up to a 120 years”. Thus it was God who decided that man shall live to a 120.

This is truer of Kerala where modern health facilities are available all over the State.  The average age of Indians was 24 in the 1940s. But today Kerala is on a par with the Scandinavian countries where the average age is above 80. We are catching up with their records. The gerentological research team gives a long list of people who lived for nearly 120 years. Emma Morane of Italy is the oldest living person, 118 years. Jeanne Clement of France was 122 and 165 days when she died in 1997. Living up to a 120 is becoming common. Japan has larger number than any other country of elderly above 100.

Kurichi Bava H. H. Basleius Geevarghese IInd, Catholicose and Malankara Metropolitan used to say when he was old (died in 1964 aged 90) that man shall live only up to seventy or a maximum of eighty years. This is quotation from Psalms 90: 10 a song of Moses. All other chapters in Psalms is said to be songs of David. This alone is different and is stated to be of Moses who led the Jews from their bondage in Egypt under the Pharaohs to Canaan, the Promised Land.

This statement of Moses do not contradict God’s dictum of 120 for man. The Jews from Egypt questioned God during their great emancipation voyage and always murmured during the Journey for want of food water and other comforts. So God decided that none of them shall see the promised Canaan. Moreover they are remnants of slave labourers in Egypt. God wanted more sturdy resistant warriors born in the deserts of Sinai to conquer the  inhabitants of Canaan.  In other words all who started from Egypt were forced to meander for forty years in the Sinai desert so that all of them died before the end of the journey at Canaan. Even Moses their leader was not spared. He walked up the mountain top and was a given a far off glimpse of Canaan and died somewhere on Mt. Nebo. This was the background of the statement of Moses in Psalms that all the emigrant voyagers shall die in forty plus 70 or 80 to complete the 120 promised by God.

So now those above sixty and retired from official life are in their middle age and must look forward to live in this world usefully for the next sixty years. Most of the Nobel Prize winners of the World are and were around 50 or 60. Imagination run riot in the teen age. But they form into concrete ideas and inventions much later in years and through intense incentives and insights. True there were exceptions to this.

There are 3 customary stages in the life of man- Youth, Middle Age, Old age. Youth have plenty of imagination, energy, vitality for new ideas. But, no money to go forward. In middle age you have money; but no time to spare- fully engaged in your pursuits and personal life. In the retired life one has plenty of time and enough money to live on.  This is the period in your life when you are hassle free. No problem with your children. They are all married and well settled in life.  Sixty is your YOUVA time. You are graduating from youth to middle age. It is your happy YUVA days.  Keep every neurons and cells in your brain and every muscle in your physical body active, engaged and energetic. Give sufficient exercises to neurons and muscles to keep you in YUVA form.

After sixty you are entering into a new life. Think of the possibilities of utilising your time and energy usefully to yourself and the society around you. It is they and their explicit and implicit help and thoughts that made you what you are. It is your duty to repay them for all their support in procreating you to be what you are today. Let us think of ways of utilising your time, energy and money for the rest of the life.

1.      Entering into a new employment

2.      Accept a social voluntary work in your church or temple

3.      Remember your family members or class mates in the school / College and start an Alumni association. Keep them in a regularly held meeting as highly integrated group. They can help the weaker among you or in your neighbourhood.

4.      Start tuitions for the children in your village

5.      Open a kinder garden for infants

6.      Be a baby sitter  for your grandchildren

7.      Help grand children in their studies

8.      Write your own events and challenges in life as a novel or articles.

9.      Start a kitchen garden

10.  Begin an anti-pollution movement in your neighbourhood / join the Social or Government campaign as a volunteer. This is the biggest problem now facing the earth.

11.  Waste management is an equally crucial issue facing the modern so-called cultured society. Become a volunteer or organiser of such a movement in your locality.”Annan kunjumThannalaaythe”.

12.  Start a reader’s club for the elderly. Every week end / suitable day, each member in rotation, will present the summary of the book he read in that week, followed by a discussion.

All these except the first are non-remunerative and probably demanding some expense on your part. You can think of any number of such engagements to keep your mind and body agile and active.

 A Chinese message translated to English came as e-mail message to me. It argued that parents in their life need not try to accumulate wealth for their children.  First, your hard earned wealth in their time will turn out to be two pence for them because of their comparatively higher income and devaluation of money. Secondly, they are made to be parasites depending on your wealth for their living. Make them to earn as much as they want for themselves.  If you try to make them parasites they will be yearning for your death so that they can get their due from your accumulated wealth. So be joyful. Enjoy God-given life as much as you can in happiness. Spend your life, health and wealth, and or give them away in your lifetime to make needier others around you happier and earn your place in heaven with God. Wish you all the 120 years of health, wealth and happiness.

End