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DAY DREAMS For
all its glib superciliousness, I find the British media very engaging.
There's precious little by way of real substance—a function of Britain's
declining importance in the world—but Brit writers have a certain
way with words. They make the most banal of subjects a riveting read.
After all, it's their language and they know how to use it to full effect.
Five years
ago, I read an article in The Daily Telegraph by a gentleman who
had just celebrated his 40th birthday. Having turned 40 around then, I
read it with keen interest only to end up rather dejected. In India, I
had been told, life really begins at 40. It's the time you expect your
career graph to zoom upwards and stay that way till retirement. However,
the article told a different story. Your best years, the writer pronounced
grandly, are behind you. To him, 40 was the time you reflected on missed
opportunities, crucial breaks and endless foibles. It was the time you
looked ahead to a period of stability and the intellectual decline that
came with it. Having turned
45 last week, I am tempted to agree with the Brit. With a midriff that
could do with some trimming and a memory that somehow isn't as sharp as
it was, I am perplexed by the overwhelming faith India has in the maturity
that comes with experience. While in the rest of the democratic and free
market world, the e-people dream of making their first million by the
time they are 25 and their pre-retirement billion by the time they touch
a grand 35, public life in India doesn't start till you reach the venerable
half-century mark. I say this
with the satisfaction of knowing that my best years are not behind me.
At least so long as I can keep my faith in India. Take the case of a dear
friend who spent his student life being a leader. He spent 19 months of
the Emergency in prison, became a lawyer subsequently and made his first
crore by the time he turned 35. He kept his hand in politics and at the
age of 48 was rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat and a high-profile ministership.
Our own over-simplistic media called him a whiz kid and persisted with
that label till one day he reminded an audience that the British Prime
Minister was younger than him. To be reminded
of this harsh fact is a cruel experience in India. Somehow, we don't take
our leaders too seriously till they cross 50. And we don't give them awesome
responsibilities till it is conclusively demonstrated that they have crossed
the corporate retirement age. Where the seniors in the West look to cashing
their pension funds and finding a sinecure in the House of Lords, our
veterans look for high office. What's the
logic? Youth, they say in India, is marked by impetuosity. It's the time
you believe you can change the world. Or at least make the world a better
place. It's the time you experiment with ideas and shun the peace of the
graveyard. It's the time you are hungry for excitement. That won't
do in India. We are, as everyone is reminded ad nauseum, an ancient civilisation.
So ancient that everything there is to know is inherited, received wisdom.
Blessed with the wisdom of a sagely past, our mission lies in preserving
and protecting our civilisation from rash incursions of upstarts. India
is not in the business of change; its genius lies in continuity and stability.
And who else can ensure that better than those who are on the right side
of immortality? That's why I am so glad to be in India. At 45 I have a future in India. Elsewhere, I would have been pensioned off. Unfortunately, there are no pensions in India. Which is why I must now ensure that my future is guarded against the invasion of youth. (Swapan Dasgupta is Deputy Editor, INDIA
TODAY. He has edited Nirad Chaudhuri, The First Hundred Years.
Write
to Swapan Dasgupta) |
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