Active ageing is a concept that evokes the idea of longer activity, higher retirement age and working practices adapted according to the age of an individual. What age should you retire? What constitutes a suitable age to be known as a senior citizen? With increasing life spans, better nutrition and state of the art medical care, ‘seniors’ now live longer and more active lives as compared to their grandparent’s era. Perception in the past was that retirement was the age to ‘stop’ or ‘let go’ of the pace of life being followed and lead a more sedentary lifestyle. While the government pegs most senior citizen benefits to begin at 65 years, the retirement age for government and public sector officials is 58-60 years.
Unmukt Festival recently met up with Pramila Balasundaram who, at the age of 82 , is appalled at being considered a senior. Her joie de vivre and vitality are still apparent in her daily activity, with no indication of slowing down. Pramila is the founder of Samadhan, an NGO that provides therapy for underprivileged kids with intellectual disabilities. She reminisces fondly of the uphill task it was to set up in 1980s. Battling between no government assistance or legislation and dealing with a handicap steeped in superstition, she laughs at how she got by with no understanding or experience. Here are some of her insights and life lessons that she shared with us.
Words of Wisdom from our Active Ageing Expert
Never React but Respond
While retirement is subjective, I feel it’s a time of coming into your own. Its wonderful because life is a beautiful teacher. The journey of life is a transition of age, experience, the way we think, the way we approach problems and the way we react. Life lessons come with the various personality hats we have to don. How we behave as a daughter, wife, mother or professional requires us to juggle multiple personalities. All these experiences progress into different meanings, interpretations and ways to deal with people as we age.
Even now I consider myself a learner. Now though, I feel that after enjoying all the roles I have played, I can sit back and just get to know myself and look after my own needs and passions. That is one of the biggest advantages of getting to my age. My mantra is ‘never react but respond’.
Listening, Humility and Patience
Samadhan has been my biggest teacher. The three qualities I learnt the hard way on my long journey are listening, humility and patience.
All advice whether as a parent or at the work place, is to develop the art of listening. She chuckles softly as she says, “Being the youngest in a large family helped in the training.” When I first started, I had many preconceived notions about what the needs of these poor families with an intellectually challenged child should be. As time went by, more and more interaction with these mothers, made me realise that these priorities vary from family to family.
This taught me humility. In a society steeped with superstition, mothers of these children were constantly ill-treated and coped with no family support. The courage and strength that these women had, along with the knowledge they had about their child’s needs was humbling.
Patience, of course, develops over time. A simple ‘How are you?’ would culminate into a half an hour ramble on all and sundry. Listening needs patience. I learnt to listen. This had to be non-judgmental, encouraging and supportive. It could be about anything. Mother in law. Abusive husband. Nasty neighbour. Apart from being therapeutic, solutions to difficult situations came from the mothers themselves and sometimes the family.
Age is just a number
I don’t really understand what the fuss about age is. Its just a number. I don’t know how I’m suppose to look, act or talk. What I do know is that what I am doing is natural for me.
At 82, Pramila is nowhere near retiring. She travels for both work and pleasure, enjoys her time with her children and grandchildren and paints when inspired. When it comes to Samadhan she is focused on research but her next vision is to start satellite units so that they can expand their reach.
It is from experiences that we create memories, teach life skills and inspire character. Age is just a number, don’t let it dictate actions.
Are you someone going through a similar phase? Don’t worry we have got it all covered. Unmukt Festival is a one-stop lifestyle solutions hub for seniors. Follow us to stay updated on active ageing.