The Age Of No Retirement

What if Thor decided that perhaps 2,500 years of existence meant now would be a good time to retire from his Norse duties? Asgard would fall.

What if 234-year old Chewbacca were to suddenly proclaim, after all this time, that he was withdrawing from Jar Jar Binks’ idiosyncracies? Would the Force still awaken?

And let’s not even delve into the concept of a world without 120-year-old Wolverine and 50-year-old Hugh Jackman. Whatever age-defying elixir they’re onto, it is widely accepted that without them, there’d be infinitely less to marvel at.

It’s high time we change what it means to be getting older.

43% of people over 50 years of age wish to keep working. And rightly so, considering they formulate about one-third of the working age population. The idea that people who’ve got skills, talent and experience and years ahead of them of a reasonably healthy lifestyle must suddenly be made to think that they can’t do anything anymore, is quite simply preposterous.

Here are a bunch of reasons that could plausibly end a good, sound purposeful life :

• Coronary Heart Disease
• Poverty
• Terminal Illness
• Multiple Sclerosis

And many, many more. It’s certainly not the number of birthdays.

For an increasingly greater number of older people, their presence in our society along a later life in public discourse is perceived as a problem rather than an opportunity. The way we millennials treat our older generation counterparts – as liabilities rather than a resource for learning – is tragic.

We all had that one fancy teacher in school who would love to dress ‘young’ – and we’d love nothing more than to mock her for draping herself in all the colours of the rainbow. There’s no such thing as dressing age-appropriately. In no world is there an age limit for dreams, or a birthday requirement for vision.

When youngsters call someone out for being obnoxiously lazy with a ‘chal na buddhi’, I think of my travel-junkie grandparents. I think of a certain middle-aged high-school English teacher who attended the NH7 Weekender with much enthusiasm and raved to her heart’s content after a tough week, all to listen to an unassuming 21-year-old say, ‘I didn’t know old people come to these things’. It’s troubling to think what our older versions would look like, considering our perception of old age is so misguided. For the record, every performer at the NH7 weekender was well over 21 years of age.

I think about the time my grandmother put on her best pair of Calvin Kleins, just because.

Legendary folklorist Randhir Khare may have fought crocodiles in the Sundarbans in the better part of his lifetime, but there’s no stopping him from going out for an impromptu drive and coming back with a gazillion memories. Pushing 70, here’s someone who displays an inimitable zeal for life and true triumph of the spirit.

As long as we’re learning and growing, age doesn’t matter. When you start to stop doing, what you love or otherwise, that’s when you’re getting old.
Redefine what it means to age.

Photographers: Arvind Krishnan, Nishant Sahoo, Samar Dikshit