Having little to do, senior citizens are usually fond of reminiscing, at the drop of a hat, about the lifestyles, sartorial fashions and mores of their youth, besides the incredibly cheap cost of living then. However, few youngsters have the patience, time or inclination to listen to them these days.
True, some of us oldies do tend to harp ad nauseam about “the good old days” when life was far easier, less complicated and more laid-back than now and when the cost of living seldom raised so much as an eyebrow. Those were days of plenty with shortages practically unknown.
A senior citizen myself, I agree that harking back to those truly halcyon days is one way of vividly reliving and sharing the good times we elders had as youngsters. Everything then was ridiculously cheap in comparison with today’s skyrocketing prices. Imagine buying tomatoes for as little as 50 paise a kilo, sugar at one rupee a kilo and petrol for no more than 2 rupees a litre! Not to mention the purchasing power of our far-from-princely pocket-money of 50 paise per week — a paltry pittance by today’s lavish standards.
However, finding a willing listener (forget an attentive one!) is no easy matter now. One has to practically buttonhole, corner or cajole someone into listening. Some, more out of politeness than interest, do hear one out perfunctorily. But many don’t even bother to mask their lack of interest — or stifle their yawns. Perhaps such trivia bores them. Or maybe they ascribe our garrulity to anecdotage — though we are, assuredly, not in our dotage! Senility is still far away from most of us.
What few youngsters realise is that recalling “the olden days” comes as naturally and spontaneously to senior citizens as their fondness for giving unsought advice. It’s certainly not egotism. All we want to do is to share our experiences with the younger generation, hoping they will benefit from these and avoid the pitfalls that we faced. In doing so, we oldies get the satisfaction of indulging in nostalgia, so dear to us in our sunset years. Our memories are our only link with the fast fading past.
Surely, the younger generation doesn’t want to deny us the pleasure of our recollections which are a revelation to those who condescend to hear us out. Or do they begrudge us our attachment to nostalgia? Perhaps, they forget that someday they, too, will be oldies like us, keen to regale their children and grandchildren with stories of their own youth when anything could be bought for a song — and the world was so radically different from the one they now live in. Is the basic courtesy of giving their elders a patient hearing, at least occasionally, beyond our youngsters?
gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com
