Special issue with the Sunday Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

AGEING: October 18, 1998

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Age does not stale?

Gowri Ramnarayan

Carnatic vocalist Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, hailed as the patriarch of the Carnatic music world, turned 90 this year. He has a lifetime of extraordinary achievements to reflect upon. He continues to be in demand for the performances he gives at the insistence of admirers. "How can I stop singing? I was never paid so much in my younger days!" he jokes.

But catch him in a pensive mood. He will lean back on his easy chair and say wistfully, "A long life is not an unmixed blessing. You stand alone like a tree bereft of the woods which once surrounded it." Semmangudi will add that, for a musician, the problem with ageing is not the fear of death, but the waning of his powers as a performer.

For the mind of the artist does not age as do his limbs. It not only remains active, but undertakes journeys more exciting and significant. His improvisation becomes more striking and profound. "My own understanding of Khambhoji or Mukhari is greater today than when I was young," says Semmangudi. Imagine the grief of such a ripe genius when the voice fails to translate what is conceived in imagination!

The West worships youth. The poet who dies young, before the fulfilment of his promise, is its tragic icon of creativity. India venerates age. It is widely believed here that the older the artist, the greater his work. There are tales of swansongs surpassing the best poems of youth. A Tyagaraja could compose a moving song before his death in old age. A Shivarama Karanth or a Shirwadkar could cross eighty and still keep their readers hooked.

It cannot be denied that age does hamper the act of creation. Physical debility prevents the perfect execution of the inner vision. More importantly, age may weaken passion, that intense involvement with the chosen work. Without its emotional charge, creativity stagnates. The artist may not admit this, even to himself.

Take Vinda Karandikar, the Marathi poet who started writing in his thirties. The poems were vigorous in expressing anger and protest, often with Marxist undertones. They clamoured for social justice. His love poems had a sensuous delicacy. Karandikar flew kites with his son. He composed delightfully complicated nursery rhymes for him. He also translated Shakespeare and Aristotle into Marathi, gave poetry readings in packed halls.

Everything ceased one day when the poet announced his retirement. Why? Because he had nothing more to say. Karandikar shuns visitors and public functions. He doesn't give interviews as he explained on the phone. "I can't trust myself to be coherent and consistent."

Does he miss writing? "Not at all," he said. "Doctors and teachers retire, why not poets?" Karandikar leads a contented life - reading, playing with the grandchild, attending music concerts when his arthritis permits, and watching the world wag past.

Another artist confessed that "creative fatigue" could hit a writer at any stage, but it became a permanent factor in old age. "Pride prevents self analysis. So you keep on writing though you are neither heard not read. You are terrified of being forgotten."

Summing up from other responses the maladies of old age include loss of coherence, of memory, too much verbalisation, staleness, repetitiveness, self deception. The more feted and honoured the artist, the greater the fear of a fall. On the one hand (s)he shuns the company of older people, almost as if old age were a contagious disease. On the other hand, despite the enjoyment of the company of the young, there is jealousy, and envy of fresh talent. Nostalgia anaesthetises creativity, there is no choice except to coast along on past glory.

Dev Anand (75 years)
Filmstar

Creativity has to do with passionate involvement in what you are doing. There is excitement as you work and as you await judgment upon what you have achieved.

Yes, I am full of energy at seventy five. Why? Since I am still doing what I love - I am in total charge as a film maker - I script, shoot, act in, and edit my productions. Restless? yes, I am. If you are not restless you will be dull and stale, you cannot create. I was restless at seventeen when I wandered in the streets of Mumbai, looking for a break. I became a star but I decided to make my own films. That was the way to grow, I would learn all the time.

Am I jealous of the young Dev Anand who was a matinee idol? When I see my old films I smile. What a novice I was, how naive! Now I have maturity.

Do I fear old age? I would, if I sat in a corner watching TV, dreaming of old times, grumbling about the present. But I am still Dev Anand, I make films, I star in them.

But I don't like the company of the old. Most of them are full of the past, of sermons and complaints. I'm afraid that attitude will infect me. I'd like to sympathise from a distance!

I don't feel unhappy that I have been supplanted by younger heroes. Anyway, what is the definition of this charisma you are talking about? Charisma is finding a place in people's hearts. I think I have that - a place in your father's heart, in yours and your daughter's!

Why do my heroines get younger and younger every year? I don't use them as props to recapture my lost youth. Fact is, my profession is for young people. Not only must I feel young, but I must find a young partner to catch the viewers' interest. Older women are accepted only in character roles.

I don't want to appear in character roles. You have an image of me - why should I destroy it at this age? In "Solah Baras Ki" I play myself - Dev Anand, the actor/director/star - who has endured for fifty years now. The story is based on a real life incident. A 16-year-old girl kept following me from city to city during my tour abroad. She wanted me to cast her in a film!

My creativity keeps me fit. If I feel any mental block, I switch off and do something else - read, travel, listen to music. And pretty soon I bounce back.

No special diet or course of exercise. I have disciplined myself over the years to look good and light in front of the camera. I am not a glutton. I don't take lifts, I run up the stairs.

Flops? They are challenges to do better. I plan my next film before the release of the one on hand. After all, Van Gogh died unrecognised. So did Guru Dutt. Now they say they produced classics.

Tyeb Mehta (73years)
Contemporary artist

Does age snuff out the fire? Do the flames turn to ashes? Depends on the energy the artist brings to his work.

He comes to terms with certain images. He arrives at certain conventions by a process of reduction.

At first you make too many choices. As you grow older, you come to the root of the problem you set yourself. The years bring exposure, and the experience of having thought about and done so many paintings. Age means time - time to do better and better. The artist becomes more discriminating, more contemplative. When you are young, you try to understand the world. As you grow old, you try to understand yourself. Your work then becomes the essence of these efforts.

Claud Monet languished in his old age - Impressionism had become passe. But, at the age of eighty, he suddenly created the 'Water Lilies,' those masterpieces of modern times. See how energy gets disciplined as you get older?

I chose my images of the rickshaw-wallah and the trussed bull. As time passed (I won't say I got older!) I look at those images as a given convention and worked on the language of painting. What is painting all about in terms of form, space, colour and line? What does the image do in the painting? Reflexivity developed in three directions - upon the world, the self, and art itself.

Nobody comes here, or listens to anything I may have to say. Young artists are in a hurry to get recognition. But in art you have to go on for a long time before you can say "I have done something."

Titian died at 90, saying I wish I had another lifetime. Age does not hamper creativity, but it slows you down. I should be painting now - but I have been advised rest after my fourth heart attack.

Youth has this advantage. You are relaxed. There's all the time in the world to work. Now I don't have much time left. The day I feel I'm not at my best I'll stop painting.

Gangadhar Gadgil (75 years)
Marathi writer

A radical departure from the norm is possible only in youth. This is not due to conscious effort. You appear fresh and new because you are unknown, and whatever you do has not been done before.

In my first creative phase (1946-60) I wrote short stories, a novel, travelogues and criticism. After that I felt I was repeating myself. So I wrote 'Durdamya' (The Indomitable). It was based on the life of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, which was a departure for me from personal experience, and for Marathi literature in being fiction based on a historical persona. My maturity was an advantage. I could rebel against the conventional image of Tilak as a social reactionary.

I have no time for nostalgia. I am translating my short stories into English, writing a novel, a travelogue on Alaska, and looking at Sant Tukaram from a new angle.

True, I am not able to stand as much physical strain as before. But I will be unhappy only if I am bedridden.

I won't say that my perception or sensibility underwent changes after the age of fifty. Rather, they were modified. I am clearer about certain aspects of reality that I did not take into account before. For example, I expected the Dalit movement to take a positive form. I am sad that it has got stalled. Where do you go from hostility and rejection?

Also, though I believed in women's liberation, like all Indian men, I was not prepared to adjust to the rapid changes! My wife asserted her rights. It took me some time to accept that she was right.

I note one marked difference in society past and present. When I was young the community was orthodox. But it accommodated all kinds of eccentrics. Today there is no place for the misfit and nonconformist.

Manna Dey (75years)
Playback singer

Creativity and old age? Well, I suppose you can work towards creativity at any age, if the environment is conducive to it, if it gives support and encouragement.

But today, the environment is inimical to the arts. The priceless heritage of our music is getting destroyed before our eyes.

Do you listen to modern music? I do. Will the old songs work today? Old is gold, but its appeal is limited. I travel all over the world on concert tours and have faithful audiences. But how long can this last?

In the old days musicians and music directors had an idea of what they wanted to do. Today creativity is nothing but pilferage. It is a process of lifting, pasting and editing.

In today's troubled, tension-filled life, people are looking for escape all the time. They want sizzling noises to drown their sorrows. They wont relax and wait for the kind of music I love to sing. My creativity has definitely taken a backseat. If we want good music again, we must have settled times and a peaceful world. Right now there is cacophony outside and inside, which has infected our music as well.

I am 75 now, I can sing for three hours. I practise every day. I can do justice to the old songs. That I am still a sincere professional and student of music indicates a mindset which is young and optimistic! There are some young people among my listeners, responding very well to my love songs in Bengali. This energises me.

Singing is often a way of looking at things. The other day someone boasted of recording a number of songs in a single day. Could he have done justice to all of them? Quality requires time, involvement... Sometimes I get nostalgic for the old times.

I try to conserve my strength. I cannot do the things I could do years ago. It does not upset me. I take pride in what I have done so far, I am grateful that I am able to do as much as I am doing now.

Birju Maharaj (60 years)
Kathak dancer

With the passage of time there has been greater enthusiasm for my dancing. Am I growing younger? You know, there is no greying of the mind. I am convinced that the imagination becomes more dynamic with age and experience, it can more than make up for the inevitable loss of physical strength. If I continue to give full fledged performances, it is due not only to my own rigorous practice and training, but the grace of God and blessings of the guru.

It is attitude which determines the quality of creative expression. Today's performers are in a hurry to succeed. They want to be seen on TV, noticed by the press. They get distracted from the main task. Art cannot be hurried. In our days, we longed for the guru's approval, not for the applause of the audience.

I was disheartened once when only some fifty viewers turned up in a huge hall for my performance in Italy. Then I asked myself, "Are you going to be dishonest with your art?" I gave my all in a 2 1/2 hour show. In any case, if an artist doesn't have this attitude, what can he do even if he had an audience of thousands and millions?

I continue to be alert, active. I am able to do at sixty what I was not able to do at sixteen. With this difference: praise was easier to get when I was young, imperfections were overlooked. Now, the least flaw and people will say "He's too old to dance!"

Regrets? Sometimes I feel audiences may have increased in numbers but not in discernment. I don't lower my standards. I see each day as a whole lifetime, to be lived fully. So I am not worried about a future when I may not be able to dance.

With age I saw that I needed better balance and planning of shows. I was teaching since I was 14, but only after my forties did I become a creative guru, focussing not on the techniques alone, but also on the soul of this dance form. I learn a lot from young people, their dynamism refreshes me. I appreciate the wisdom of the old, If I am too long in their company I feel I too may need a walking stick!

I started composing thumris and writing poems after age fifty, and I have taken to painting now.

Rest? I think I will find rest only when I find that student to whom I can transfer my pratibha, my creative energy and expression. Until I do that, I will keep dancing.

Zohra Segal (86years)
Stage/film actor

How can I grumble about old age when the last four years have been the most active and lucrative phase in my acting career? Casting becomes limited to grandmothers, even great grandmothers. But it doesn't affect my imagination or make me stale. Having never been a beauty I was not a star even in my younger days. But I did (and still do) get excellent roles. I read a lot of plays, poems and novels. They stimulate my imagination. I have always been an outgoing, forward looking extrovert. I can be more fiery than anybody else.

I began my professional career in 1935 as a dancer in Uday Shankar's troupe, and continued acting in Prithvi Theatres for 14 years (1945-1959). Later it was a struggle to find work in England, until I got my break with TV serials. Returning to India in 1987 I launched into a second innings. I have enough work on the stage and screen. Can you believe it, I'm cast in two Bollywood films this year!

Travelling in India and abroad was taxing until I realised I was entitled to a wheelchair. So now I get on and off aircraft like a VIP, I go through customs in a flash! Stage rehearsals are tiring, I admit. No comforts as provided for a film crew.

I love biryanis and spicy meat curries. But I have to be careful with my diet. I am not a habitual drinker and I sleep well. I exercise for an hour and a half every morning to keep fit. I am pretty active. Cancer of the left foot has responded to treatment. Going up and down the staircase at home keeps my knees "lubricated". I cannot wear my hearing aid on stage because I cannot gauge the projection of my voice if I do. So I tell my co-actors to give my cues loudly. Memory? Luckily its good. To keep it supple I recite English and Urdu poems for 45 minutes everyday. Good speeches in my own plays are useful for this purpose.

No, I don't feel depressed when my contemporaries die. I feel happy that at least I am alive! Khushwant Singh asked me if I was afraid of death. I said I was looking forward to it. Then I will meet my husband Kameshwar, Dada (Uday Shankar), Papaji (Prithviraj Kapoor). I am sensible enough to know that consciousness may not survive after death. But what is to stop me from imagining that it will? The other world may have colours I've never seen, sounds that only the sages have heard in trances, and excellent gourmet food!

The only thing I pray to avoid is a lingering death.

As one grows older one certainly becomes more cranky. You see me now and think, "What a dear old lady!" You don't know the real Zohra. I can be greedy, selfish, very stingy and fussy.

Yes, I can accept the fact that some day I have to stop working. I have my reading, my crossword puzzles and my family. Also, as one grows older, the everyday chores take much longer to perform. I am not afraid of loneliness. I have dealt with it before, it is not exclusive to old age.

B.C. Sanyal (96 years)
Contemporary artist

The visual appearances of things around me are changing very fast. I am more mentally occupied now than before in keeping pace with these changes in the environment, nature, art, people... and finding a meaning in them.

Old age comes on you imperceptibly, but your perception can keep you young. I am only afraid that I may live on as an invalid. There is nothing to fear as long as I can stretch my limbs, talk and hold the brush.

Today, at 96, I have discovered a new way of holding a brush. That means what you permit to appear through the brush becomes completely different. It delights me.

When I was young, I wanted to say many things. I subscribed to Leftist ideology, was influenced by the nationalist movement, lived with labourers, experienced the trauma of Partition. (I come from Bengal and my wife is from Lahore, Punjab) In my work, I wanted to depict the causes I identified now.

Today I am free of messages and ideas. I said, why am I bothered about subjects and social concerns? Let me paint for the heck of it. I will play with colour for its own sake.

Age imposes some limitations. I no longer sculpt - it is physically too taxing. Also, India does not offer the kind of space and technological facilities to create huge sculptures.

But when I am painting, I am imperious to time and hunger.

Having been a teacher all my life, I still have young people coming to show me their work. I know what is happening in my field.

I shun old people except for a few friends who are so mentally agile that talking to them is a pleasure. Doesn't happen often, no.

What keeps my mind agile? Difficult to say. I think it is because my perception has an emotional quality. The charge of feelings is not as frequent as in youth. But I feel more deeply and significantly. I can analyse far more. I can share these thoughts with people close to me better than I could before.

Nirmal Verma (69 years)
Hindi novelist

Age matters comparatively less to a scientist, historian or philosopher who uses the intellect as an instrument of creativity. But an artist uses his sensuous and emotional perception. When you are young, you are vulnerable to so many feelings. They find their imaginative equivalents in art with intensity and force, often with a touch of rawness. In a novel or short story, you are trying to embody the experience of life in the realm of art. As time goes on, this becomes more and more difficult.

As perception becomes less vulnerable and sensitive, you gain experience, hindsight, greater equanimity, judgment of good and evil. This wisdom can deepen the content of your work. But you have to be patient, put in much more effort in more drafts than you did back in youth, to capture the same freshness.

As you grow older, you have success behind you. You don't want to write merely to get published. You want to get exactly at what is troubling you, and express it genuinely. Doubts and uncertainties cloud your mind. You are afraid you may not live up to your own image. Success can kill genius and inventiveness because the writer wants to repeat his success by repeating the same effects he achieved in his earlier work.

What makes you write on after you have acquired a reputation? If you write because you are afraid of being forgotten, you are forgotten much quicker. You must write because you want to do something different, to resolve a certain human problem, to realise a vision. You must be prepared to take risks.

There are many pressures when you are young - a job, love affairs, responsibilities, a newly wedded wife. From that web of seductions you have to find a corner to work in. Those seductions feed your adrenalin, but they also pollute and distract. Old age is free of them, a privilege. Some writers are nonplused by it!

The friends of my youth with whom I spent hours discussing politics, existence and art, are dead or have drifted away. A tremendous loss. I have become withdrawn and reserved, hesitant to meet new people. Forging new links demands more effort and time than I can spare now. Also, I don't try to escape solitude by finding makeshift substitutes. Surely this affects my writing. But I also write essays which need conceptual ideas, unlike the personal art of fiction. This keeps me going.

There are compensations like books, music, becoming sensitive to things around you. Indifference has a deadening effect on the writer.

To be honest, I cannot judge the struggles of young writers in dealing with their problems. Only, when I read something I like in their work, I feel envious. It is so different from what I am doing. I feel jealous because I cannot see things the way they do. But then their world and the problems which determine their life in art are their own.

So many enemies plague a working writer! If you have been writing for 40 years and if that has given meaning to your life, sustained you through difficult times - then you lean upon your writing as the last resort. The fact that the day may come when physical disability, intellectual senility, or some external factor like self satisfaction may stop me from writing is a truly chilling thought. What else is there to be scared about?