Old age may be defined as the final watershed (= a place of retreat) in a man’s life. No cut and dried (= clear cut or categorised) account of its joys or despair is possible. The reason, primarily, is this: old age is the apotheosis (= coming to a head, or finale) of one’s entire life. Naturally its pleasures and its disappointments vary from person to person. It depends on ones’ concept of joy or sorrow.
Two great lines from the English literature may be good to begin with. Frustrated ambition, as in Macbeth, makes him a physical and mental wreck (= a broken piece). He envies Duncan to whom death come as a relief. The line is, ‘After life’s fitful fever old…. I grow sleeps well’. The other line from T.S. Eliot, is interesting in its easy, humorous style. It is, ‘I grow bottom of my. trousers rolled’. old / I wear the
The commoners that range between the two extremes above- react to their old age in several ways. But, in general, old age conditioned by several factors. In the past is when the families lived together within one household, old age had a joy of its own kind. Children, grandchildren, bonds of love, respect and loyalty spread an ambience (= surrounding atmosphere) of joy and mutuality which was an asset for one’s old age. But today old age with its isolation and a universal feeling of privation ( = want of comfort in the spiritual sense) is becoming a frustrating phenomenon. This, however, is its sociological aspect.
Looking from a closer angle, and old man’s material requirements are meagre (= very little). Being old and incapable of combating the rush and dash of modern life, his mobility (= easy movement), too, has become somewhat crippled (= disabled). Thanks, however, to the recent campaign in favour of Senior Citizens, the government palpably (= making one able to feel) has proved to be his friend.
An old man, today more than in recent past, has to face the crisis of adjustment. People call it ‘generation gap’. But, in the history of human civilisation, one does not observe such ‘gaps’ between succeeding generations quite so frequently, as today. Perhaps this happens during millennia when a sudden onrush of completely foreign and new value seem to erode (= wash off) the existing ones.
Today the Computer and the Internet seem to throw into oblivion (= forgetfulness or darkness) many powerful media. An old man, today, remains an amused witness to the grand scenario. He is an wonder-struck at this New Child of modern times as was Miranda (Prospero’s daughter in Shakespeare’s The Tempest) at first seeing a handsome youth in Ferdinand. These amenities of our life today introduce another Brave New World for the old man.
Old age is always a mixture of joys and sorrows, joys of discovery for the thoughtful or frustration for those who are incompatible (= not fitting) with it. In fact, life itself is a strange phenomenon. Youth is vital and we hear poets and philosophers addressing him (= youth) in gloating (= full of praise) terms. But a child that is ‘unwilling to school’, is forced to confinements of the study room or other unpleasant duties, perhaps, envies his grandfather idling, gossiping; no pressure, no confinement! A – free bird, he thinks, poor soul; while the old man mourns his loss of that energy, that vitality which youth had given him.
