Being Old

“These people might be crazy”. To anyone born and reared in the southern most tip of India with closed and conservative social values, this would be the natural reaction when you see some fifty odd oldies grouped together at a community ground and dancing to Chinese music. If this happened at my place, they would get a few unfriendly (read hurtful) remarks.

As ever, my curiosity held me there and I watched for a while. I could imagine what my grandmother would have said if I asked her to take up community dancing. She would have given me the ‘Top 10 reasons not to dance when you are old’, which would include “I am too old” and “what would people say if they knew”.

My grandmother would never have dared to do this, and yet, in this neighbouring country I see the old folk dancing away, without any inhibitions of old age or worries about a judgemental society.

After a few minutes, I decided to go my way, mentally applauding this country and the people in it for being different. I hardly took a few steps, before I saw this.

A couple, tired from dancing were sitting down on a bench in the adjacent bus stop. The old lady was resting her foot on her husband’s lap and he was rubbing her aching soles.

Marriage is nothing but a constant companionship. It takes so much to fall in love, and even more to stay in love. To live 20 or 30 years together, without losing the attraction for each other – that is one daunting, almost impossible task with an outcome that can never be guaranteed.

I wondered about the old couple – one taking care of the other. This is the jackpot that we all dream of, a partner who stays by us through thick and thin, the partner who will untiringly rub our soles when we are tired from dancing. A partner with whom we are not afraid of growing old and being old.

That cold blue night gave me a new energy. After having failed in many of my relationships and having coming to the conclusion that love is a futile, hurt inducing exercise, the sight of the old couple dancing away in the dusk of their lives encouraged me.

They must also have fought and decided to give up. But here they are, at the end of it, braving all the storms – providing comfort and joy to each other.

Some day, some time, I will again believe in the magic of love. When I do, if he comes along, I promise to be that untiring partner who will rub his soles. And I hope he will too.