Staying Young

I was in God’s own country last week. Where there is God there are angels. At forenoon one day we, some of the family, were sitting out under the house mango tree and chitchatting. Every house stead in Kerala will generally have at least one mango tree. Where there are more trees the biggest one in the front yard will be nominated as the ‘head’ mango tree under which family meetings are held occasionally.  A little distance away from my house is a women’s college, where PT Usha and Shiny Abraham were once students. As we lazed enjoying the breeze coming in through the ‘Palghat gap’ in the Western Ghats, suddenly we heard a commotion from the small park outside the compound wall. The unmistakable giggles indicated some excited girls were onto something interesting and I decided to investigate. There were a bunch of girls and a couple of instructors with video and audio equipment and some assorted sophisticated digital cameras, available with the grocers these days, in the park.

The girls were students of ‘Mass communication’ in the college. They were on the prowl to catch unsuspecting passersby and record some interesting sequences for a lesson in documentary compilation and editing. Could I be a target for an interview on ‘today’s youth’, one young thing asked me with a disarming smile. I agreed and then realised I will have to do the frames in a mundu I was wearing and without makeup. What the heck it will still be fun, so thinking I sat down on a stone bench with the blue dress sitting across from me as the interviewer. The red dress was behind the camera and the green dress handled the audio. The clap was sounded by the one in pink and the interview rolled and was done to the satisfaction of the ‘students’. Every one was excited and it was time to break up. All the young smiles profusely thanked me and departed with a cute ‘Thank you ‘uncle’’ each. Throughout the proceedings of the previous 20 odd minutes I never once felt like an uncle. Why the uncle in the end? It would have been nice if they were to say ‘Thank You Kelly’ or ‘Thank you Vish’…Why this thank you uncle? That rankled and set me thinking.

Every human has two parts to him / her - the mind and the body. The body which is just a biological mass that degenerates with time and is often propped up with cosmetics and/or cosmetic surgery. The mind is different. If proper control over the mind is exercised it can never degenerate. It is the fear of aging which speeds the very decline some dread most. And it ultimately robs our life of any meaning. An alert mind is the key to stay young.

Getting back to my story - after prolonged agonizing, I knew why the uncle. The interview was on ‘youth of today’. In the course of my ‘interview’ I was unwittingly critical of the youth of today and I may have wandered on to something like ‘in my times….’ more times than required…That, in hind sight was utterly stupid. I should have done better and empathized with the ‘youth of today’. With a sharp mind such mistakes can be avoided and you can stay young for ever.