A thought for the Aging generation.

There are things that grow more precious with age. Old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.

Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it, it doesn’t matter.

Actually, life gets more enjoyable the older you get. The hardest years in life are between ten and seventy. One cannot help being old but one can resist being aged.

Remember that when you were born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world will cry and you will rejoice.

Age is a mirrored kaleidoscope. When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you look. Age is not a youthful friend but a sorry travelling companion and it’s impossible to get rid of the pesky image.

A Chinese proverb says that a woman who tells her age is either too young to have anything to lose or have anything to gain.

Once a foodie with great appetite for happy foods, you know you’re over the hill, when you develop a taste for oatmeal, kanji, or wheat flakes or toast.

When a woman tells you her age, it’s alright to act surprised but don’t scowl. When people tell you how young you look, they are most likely calculating how old you are

Don’t be fooled. Forty is the old age to youth and fifty-five is the youth of old age. There’s many a good tune in an old violin or guitar and great comfort in a cosy chair.

Friends, you begin to know when you’re growing older when your children begin to look middle aged. Their sixties tell me I’m aged.

You’re growing aged slowly when you look forward to a dull but quiet evening That’s the age when you know all the answers but nobody is asking the questions

I’ve come to the strong conviction that there’s no future in being aged but the wheel has to rotate of on its own volition.

On Committees and time pass

 Apart from the mad rush of the mad rush of traffic, nothing has held our land together as committees. 

Just even last week a blurb from the higher echelons of the treasury said that a committee has been appointed to look into the anomalies of pay revision for State pensioners. It’s a perfect weapon to prolong or kill any forward payments.

 A committee is a group who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. So, add a few, professional scatterbrains who have no ideas of the matter at all.

Just imagine, if Moses had a committee, the Israelite's would still be in Egypt never having crossed the Red Sea. Or imagine had Columbus had an advisory committee he would never have been able to cross the Atlantic but sit on his ship in his home port.

Seating is important at a committee meeting. Friends should sit side by side to formulate strategies, and block out scattered opposition.

Having served on various committees I have formulated a set of stringent rules never to be broken if you’re invited to join a committee.

Never arrive on time, for this will stamp you as a beginner to be looked down but well-heeled members don’t say anything until the meeting is half over, then they’ll look upon you as wise.

Be as vague as possible so that you don’t irritate others. If others are dithering about the problem suggest a sub-committee to be appointed. Use your finesse to move for an adjournment and this will make you popular as the tea and snacks are served.

You’ll never find a monument dedicated to a committee

 

Grandparents and Grandchildren

‘Tis said that the simplest toy a small child can operate is a grandparent. Its only grandparents who can remember and preserve the generational veins of a continuing connectivity.

The grandparent’s job is to give their grandchildren
wings and roots, so much so they form the web and woof of what children do to
society. No grandparent can ever watch but painfully a grandchild being
corrected. Grandparents are the magic talismans for their grandchildren.

Grandparents sort of sprinkle dust over the lives of little children. According to a child a grandfather is a man grand-mother.

Grandmothers are the repositories for children’s doubts. If mother says no, ask grandmother. Children like being with grandmother for she smells like all the smell of happy foods,

Being a grandparent is Gods reward for growing old. They take babies for a priceless cuddle and warmth of unpretentious love. A grandchild is the press secretary of a grandparent.

Every grandparent has the only perfect child and they are the parents who have a second chance.

Before she can sit back and relax from mothering her young, a woman becomes a grandmother and the scenario changes.

It’s often quoted that God could not be everywhere and so he invented grandparents

The legend of Pussan

Calling cats by their names is no doubt a difficult task. You may think I’m mad as the mad hatter to write about cats whom some of you abhor and aren’t interested in their ancestry

We had a cat of indeterminate ancestry, a kind of Tabby cat with dark brown stripes on a generally white background, with blazing blue eyes.

He mewed his way into our home, maybe discarded by his mother or maybe decided to run away from the rest of the pack. We couldn’t call him Jasper or Himansu or even duplicate Biden’s cat Socks in the White House so we called him Pussan which sounded like Russian.

My youngest son and Pusan jelled together like butter and Jam which both liked. But Pussan showed his early preference for fish at all meals. He would cock a snook at rice, veggies and curry and would be sulking for half a day outdoor as no pets were allowed into the dining room at mealtimes but Pusan’s preference was smuggled out very cleverly to ease his offended psyche.

Pussan relaxed and snoozed in the boy’s rooms calmly listening to the musical endeavours. His bushy tail which outdid any modern brush swayed to the rhythms or maybe he was circulating the air from his cushion.

Pussan grew round and tubby as well-fed cats always do for, he never ran to catch rats or cockroaches. Live and let live May have been his political policy. He was never curious as cats I presume are normally are. He was rarely game for a cuddle with strangers but would unexpectedly leap onto a lap which was shelling peas into a bowl

Pussan broke every human law of gravity by spending his leisure time if nothing more important was happening terra-firma by skimming up the mango tree to catch hapless sparrows, or the laws of levitation which even a Houdini couldn’t imitate.

Pussan defied any description of being a real cat. He was on friendly terms with Fluffy our Pom. Fluffy had not decided whether he was a dog or a goat for he was on reconciliation with my Bai’s goats. So Pussan joined the confederation of peace makers. Very often on hot afternoons one could see Fluffy at his afternoon siesta and Pussan cuddling by his fluffy side.

Pussan was a clean cat for he enjoyed wiping himself top to toe and enjoyed doing it

But the day dawned when my son left the homestead for greener pastures and Pussan felt orphaned for I had no time to cuddle him

To get him over his sulks we decided to send him to a place where he could meet his next of kin and may be have his fill of seafood. It had to be done and we cajoled him into the dicky and dropped him about 35 km away where there were plenty of thattu-kadas and many of his kind loafing around.

But the traffic roared and Fluffy danced a gig on his hind paws for in strolled Pussan, baggy kneed, one ear missing but the glare of his eyes was enough to his hegemony. He resumed licking his thumbs, and filled his feline gastronomy with a bowl of fish

But left forever when the Chinese crackers and fireworks was too much for him and maybe he had no sympathy for the Chinese infiltration. He left for a quieter world.