I have just received this letter from a friend. Reworked it slightly in my style but the sentiment is much the same.
“I
am going to be fifty. Soon. Soon enough. Far too soon. Sooner than you
think. All too soon. Round the corner, rushing at me like a train in a
James Bond movie, crushing youth into strawberry jam, that’s it brother,
we are going downhill from here.
And
I have been thinking where’s the hurry, back off a bit and postpone it
by a year. I like the sound of forty-nine, there is something young and
vigorous about it. At forty-something, there is still hope. You could
get another job, have a kid (only kidding), go hiking without carting
your daily medicines with you and not complain about an old college-day
injury that throbs when the weather is cold.
Fifty
has this watershed feel about it, like you have been shoved into
another dimension and there is no going back. Fifty means, this is it,
Clyde, better hit the road, you’ll never be a colt again, this is where
when people tell you that you are only as young as you feel, what is age
but something in the mind, they are actually visibly sorry for you and
only trying not to hurt your feelings.
Fifty
opens the floodgates on unsolicited advice. People telling you to slow
down, ease up, stop playing Squash, be careful with the sugar and the
salt and not too many late nights, cut the smoking, you are not getting
any younger, you are fifty, like it was an indictment.
An
age where you are supposed to suddenly stop indulging yourself in fun
things because you are fifty, you know, it doesn’t look nice, act your
age.
What
is of most concern to me in this bleak and depressing state is this
inclination in people to expect a celebration, a party, some sort of
public recognition that you are whizzing past this milestone. Why would
you want the world to know your cake is getting squishy? Why on earth
would you want to set your depression to music? It is a sobering thought
that if I was a game of bingo I would be way past halfway house. It is
also a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for
seventeen years.
And
while on the subject of sobriety, this is the age when men especially
begin to recall their past, dredging it up like an old shoe from the
bottom of the lake. An age when you begin to preface your speech with
‘In my time’ and ‘When I was’ and ‘Way back when’... Since I loathe
nostalgia I see little reason to share this thoroughly un-momentous
occasion with anyone.
Seriously
though, it is only my body that is hitting fifty. I am only twenty-two.
And if we can postpone marriages, business deals and cricket matches I
see a lot of precedent on postponing birthdays, especially these
epoch-making ones.
You
could take out a public notice, all nice and legal, like those people
who are changing their names. I, Robbie Nath Jha hereby declare that
henceforth I shall be rechristened Babblu Bhola Jha hear ye, hear ye.
I
could cheerfully do the same. This is to inform you that I have decided
to delay my fiftieth birthday by a year. Consequently you are advised
to continue responding to me for all intents and purposes as a
forty-niner until further notice.
This
sort of deferred thing could catch on. Wedding anniversaries could go
the same way. Let’s skip the silver, sweetheart and go straight for
gold.
After all, what’s a year between friends.
