The Hindu Business Line : Cool and happy they didn’t die before getting old

Look around in ‘cinema queues, pubs, markets, airports, theatres, art galleries,’ and you may find them. Who? ‘Groovy Old Men,’ says Nick Baker in his ‘spotter’s guide’ to be launched on October 1, the International Day of Older Persons.

“Denims, trainers or walking shoes, backpack, headphones, shades, a ponytail may be, a book – they’re slightly more visible than the standard old geezer we know and love to ignore, but self-effacing enough not to try to stand out in a crowd.”

Thus, describes Baker ‘the new generation of cool pensioners who are happy they didn’t die before they got old.’

Remaining groovy or girly has been a major preoccupation ‘since time immaterial,’ the author says, and fills his book with examples of GOM. For a long time, men were encouraged to mature, he argues.

“Contrary to Shakespeare’s seven ages… there were only three stages of man: boy, man, old man.”

And the only rites of passage have been the change in trousers (from short to long), and teeth (from real to false), protests Baker.

“Until now, old men got a particularly skewed and usually bad press.”

One of the first rules that the author derives about GOM is they are older than baby boomers, and stay intact. Baker suggests that groovy old men are linked, in a way, to grumpy old men, who in turn owe their existence to the invention of angry young men (a phrase coined by interesting but non-groovy J.B. Priestley).

It’s not about keeping up with modern trends, says one of the 60-plus-year-old subjects that the author interviews.

It’s about “the memories of our past which our old favourites evoke, the girlfriend or motorbike of that time, the dancehall, the feelings, etc”.

Another candidate avers he is still “that 17-year-old kid till I look in the mirror and find some fat, ageing impostor who’s pretending to be me. Yeah, I’ve still got a lot of my younger attitudes – I played guitar in a band for 40 years or more on and off and that keeps you from growing old.”

This is a golden age for groovy old men, declares Baker, considering the availability of benefits such as pension and healthcare (though not in all countries!).

It’s likely that men will stop paying the high cost of living associated, in previous generations, with war, work and stress, he postulates.

A worry, however, is the rise of dementia, along with the rise in life expectancy, cautions Professor Sube Banerjee, Clinical Director of Old Age Psychiatry and Professor of Mental Health and Ageing at King’s College London, quoted in the book. ‘Coarsening’ of the existing personality happens in dementia, he explains.

“Women are by and large nicer than men… The life that men lived in the past developed in them a sort of toughness.”

So, if grumpy old men get grumpier in dementia, would the groovy ones get groovier, Baker wonders.

“Groovy old men are, of course, very pleasant and always have been,” he defends forcefully.

“Many in the first batch are men of the first generation where that toughness hasn’t always been bred in the bone.”

All the more reason why the book can be a good read on the global day of the old.

BookPeek.

blogspot.com