On Ageism, Aging and Witnessing the Other

What happens when you truly "see" the other?

Dear One, 

Today, I want to talk about....  

Well, you know what I am going to talk about, right? The title says it loud and clear. But before we get into it, I also want to talk about Kate Foster-- one of the main characters from “Working Moms”, a series I recently watched and thoroughly enjoyed. Kate stays in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of Montreal, goes for morning jog with her baby in tow, and executes her PR projects with elan and charm. As the series progresses, Kate goes on from being an employee to becoming a business owner. Somewhere along the way, she also hires her former boss at double his previous salary and goes on to acquire the firm where she was previously employed. Not only that, but Kate also gets featured in one of the glossy business magazines in the “Under 40 Achievers” category. Be it her power suits, stilettoes or red lipsticks, Kate spells success through every cell of her being.  

What is the relation between ageism and Kate, you might ask. Well, my mind threw up this memory from quite a few years ago.  

My Mom and I were standing in a queue in front of the cash register of a tiny, exclusive supermarket. My Mom had just retired, and I was in my late thirties. We had travelled more than 25 Kilometers in an autorickshaw; our clothes were crumpled, hair disheveled, faces oily and kohl smudged all over our eyes. The big purse that my mom held kept slipping off her shoulders just as my glasses wouldn’t stay put on my nose. Added to that was the ill-fitting black blouse which my mother had paired with her contrastingly deep maroon elegant sari. The ugly black sandals on my feet completed the picture. I would not have minded all this had I not become aware of the woman who stood in front of us. She was the Indian version of Kate Foster-- silken hair carefully brushed back and held together into a ponytail, a delicate perfume emanating from her skin, shoulders poised and elegant, long, manicured fingers holding on to a clutch with a disdain that was intentionally disdainful and a Kurtha that fitted her frame well.  

“Hello Ma’am,” the man at the cash counter greeted her ebulliently as he took her card, “Hope you are doing well!”. The woman gave him a dazzling smile as she nodded in affirmative and handed him her credit card.  

“Fantastic!” he muttered as he set about swiping the card, printing the receipt and handing it back to the woman.  

“You have a lovely day ahead,” he called out after her as she marched out of the shop carrying her bags.  

Now this sort of conversation might be very common in the Western world but in the place from where I am, the cashiers are either in conversation with other employees when they are swiping the card, or they are talking into their mobiles, or doing a thousand other things. Talk of multitasking in crazy, Desi ways! 

After the woman left, it was our turn and suddenly things turned back to “normal”. Something which had turned musical and warm only a few moments ago fell back into its old place with a silent thud. The cashier took our card, swiped it wordlessly, handed us our bags and directed us to the gate. There was no murmur of hello or a thank you, not even eye contact, but just a mechanical execution of duties.  

Later as we both came out holding our bag of goodies, and stood waiting for an auto, we saw our friend, the Indian Kate Foster speeding in her swanky car.  

“He never greeted us” my mom remarked sullenly as we got into our autorickshaw.  

Well. He never did. 

Well, to be fair, perhaps the gentleman at the cash counter knew the woman. Perhaps their kids went to the same school. Perhaps their families watched “Friends” together, perhaps they exchanged their “specialties” over the weekends. Perhaps that effusive greeting went far beyond the closing of that single business transaction. That said, my mom’s remark was never about that single non-interaction. 

It was about something else. 

To the places that my mom and dad went together, especially the government institutions, the clerks would speak to my dad although it was my mom who had put together the entire paperwork from scratch. 

When my mom and I went to shop for electronic goods, the salesgirl would explain the “sophisticated” machinations of the Bluetooth speaker to “me” although it was my mother who had asked for it in the first place.  

And as the years passed, slowly and surely, I became my mom, not in the way I gleaned her wisdom, but in the way the world viewed me from its narrow, reductionist lens.  

The internet guy asking for my son over the phone because well...technology. The doctor stopping me midway and asking my son if I had any cholesterol issues although I was obviously “present” there and had started the conversation myself. OfCourse unlike my mother, I have wit and sarcasm at my disposal. But on some days, most days, I am too exhausted to use those.  

A few weeks ago, I was recounting to a friend about the supermarket incident, “What does that man know of my Mom’s intellect?” I vented, “Would he have behaved the same way had he known what a wizard she can be with Excel and Photoshop? Would he have responded in that derisive way if he was aware that she had designed the most radical payroll in her hey days?” 

Would he have? 

These days, every now and then I come across this post on Professional Social Media platforms where organizations talk about their anti-ageism policies and how they hire seniors to create a more diverse workforce. But there is no other conversation about what comes alive through such hires and the spotlight is often on the organization itself. That makes me wonder would having anti-ageism policies eradicate ageism itself?  

Is everything as simple as that? 

The other day, I happened to meet a neighbor on the terrace. Now this was a woman who I always found “hard to converse with” because I in my own state of arrogance had decided long time back that she was of a “wavelength different than mine”.  

“What is your older one doing these days?” she asked. 

“He is all set to do his PhD,” I replied. 

“Is that job? Or study?” she asked. I don’t remember what I replied but I remember returning back to my home wondering how anyone could be so clueless about such a thing as a PhD. I also remember feeling irritated at the inaneness of the question—the ignorance of it all. As the days passed, I continued to go to the terrace. Sometimes I would sit sipping my chai, at other times I would soak in the morning sunshine. This lady too would arrive a few minutes after my arrival. She would never come empty handed though. Sometimes there would be a pail of wet laundry with her. At other times, a huge jar of homemade pickle. Or freshly rolled out fryums. Dressed in her work clothes with a dupatta thrown over her shoulders, she would take her own sweet time doing her chores—be it squeezing the water out of the wet clothes, checking them many times over, ensuring that the corners were clean and uncurled, spreading each one of the wet apparels on to the clothesline and securing them with clips. On the days that she would put out the pickles for drying she would spread a thin muslin sheet over the pieces.  

“To keep away the rogue pigeons,” she would tell me even as I would nod with a smile.  

Then one day, something happened. I had put aside the book I was reading, and my neighbor had finished putting up her laundry.  

“It gets so stifling within the four walls of the house,’ she said looking in my direction, “When you come up even for a few minutes, your spirits lift.” And saying that she lifted her empty pail and got ready to leave. 

Stifling 

Four walls of the house 

High above in the sky, the parakeets let out a shrill cry.  I watched my neighbor as she started moving down the steps—hand holding on to the railing tightly lest she fall, one foot on one stair and bringing the other foot slowly, excruciatingly next to it, each step an exercise of caution and measurement for her arthritic knees lest she have an accident. I felt a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. What if this woman did not know about PhD? Her struggles with her body, her sense of loneliness was no different than mine.  

The picture of sunrise from my terrace

Another time. Another neighbor. A woman--a single Mom whom I found unduly nosy and avoided at all costs. One day, I had to run an errand and rang her doorbell. The woman opened the door and beckoned me into her house. As I stepped inside, I gasped in silence. For there on the walls were pictures of Gods and Goddesses. Some pictures were set in beautiful frames, yet others were simply stuck to the walls. On the table were some more posters freshly printed. It was as though every nook and corner of her house belonged to some or the other God/Goddess. And that made me wonder... 

What are the stories that we tell ourselves? What was the story I was telling myself every time I was avoiding this lady? What was the story this woman telling herself every time she was put up a new picture of God in her house? What was the story she was telling herself every time she stopped someone and posed questions that were mighty annoying in nature? How was each story shaping the other? 

Photo by Dario Valenzuela on Unsplash

When does loneliness begin? Does it begin when you find yourself alone for the first time in your life? Or does it begin when you suddenly realize that your voice hardly matters? That you are no longer visible? 

My mother and I, my two neighbors, most of the women I know are all not that different from each other. We are wolves belonging to the same pack. On some days, we roll and frolic in the mud, at other times we howl in the dark. On some days we are wounded and lie still. On other days we hunt. Although withered, our bodies are fluent and conversant with the ways of the forest. And that to me is ageing, not ageism or any other “ism” for that matter. Aging is what holds life together, what holds earth together. On my head are streaks of silver, on my palms lie the velvet mites of yesteryears. I am my mother and her mother and all mothers before that. I am also my sister and my best friends and all my sisters and best friends before that. I am my children and my cat.  

 I am the forest that adapts and nourishes, holds and embraces. I am more, something more and that “more” and “something more” is “me” and continues to be “me”. And into this bosom of continuity, I gently lie my head and breathe.  

Thank you, 

Warmly, 

S 

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