You are wondering about the title of this blog. What has getting older got to do with wrong elephants? And what exactly are wrong elephants in the first place? Both your questions are very valid, dear reader. Congratulate yourself on your perspicacity and your ability to cut to the chase and ask the really important questions.
So what exactly are wrong elephants and what do they have to do with getting older? Allow me to elaborate. They say that it is easy to notice aging, except in one’s own mirror. I have been waking up every morning for the last few years and as I look at myself in the mirror, nothing about my appearance seems to have changed very much (except my receding hairline).
However, I would be fooling myself if I think that age is not catching up with me. It is. I feel tired if I drink too much and stay up late the night before. I ache if I work out a little more than my normal routine. My body does not respond as nimbly and promptly as it used to when my mind commands. This can sometimes be embarrassing. When I play tennis, I find myself about two steps behind where I used to be when I was twenty five. My mind thinks it can reach a service return on the far side of the court. My body meanwhile says “Hey, hold it!! What the hell do you think you are trying to do here?” When I play air guitar, my leaps and scissor kicks are not as high as they used to be. I get the sneaking feeling that I am no longer a serious contender for the next World Air Guitar Championships. My list of complaints is endless, and the depressing part is that it is only going to get worse. There is no remedy.
When is he going to get to the wrong elephants bit, you are asking impatiently (though I know that you are very polite and patient and will wait until I do). A year ago, I went to my local optometrist as I seemed to be having problems with my distance vision. The optometrist was a kindly bespectacled grey-haired man with crinkly eyes, about forty five years old. I was forty then, but somehow he seemed ancient. No way am I ever going to get that old, I thought to myself. Poor man, I thought, he is forced to wear bifocals. After my eye exam, he looked at me and said smugly, “You are getting older. You are going to need bifocals soon”. As I mentioned, he wore bifocals himself, and there was an air of immense satisfaction in his voice. Welcome to the club, he seemed to be saying, you didn’t think you could escape, did you?
Partly because I didn’t want to accept the fact that I am getting older, and partly because I didn’t want to give my optometrist the satisfaction of being right, I chose to ignore his advice. Of course, it has come back to haunt me. Last week I was in India, trundling down the Mumbai-Pune expressway at a hundred and ten kilometres an hour. Dusk was approaching, the sky was clear, the weather was perfect and I was enjoying the sight of a fiery sunset over the hills of the Western Ghats. As we passed one of the rest stops at dusk, a large signboard suddenly caught my attention in the gathering gloom. “Caution”, it said, “Wrong Elephants”.
I was naturally mystified and intrigued by the message on the signboard. For an instant, the sign seemed to make sense at a metaphysical level. I felt like I was reliving an acid flashback (though I have never “dropped” acid). I felt like I was in a drug-induced dream, though I was completely sober. Wrong elephants, I thought to myself, oh yes, that makes perfect sense. Then the rational part of my brain took over. No, this does not make sense. What are wrong elephants, and why are we being told to be careful of them on the side of a motorway? And taking that argument one step further, what are “right” elephants? Do we need to be careful of right elephants as well?
Pulling myself together, I squinted and took another look at the signboard. It read “Caution, Wrong Entrants”. It dawned on me that my optometrist was right. I am getting older. He is waiting for me at the entrance of the Bifocal Club, full of superficial sympathy and support on the outside, while chuckling to himself on the inside. I will probably have to take up his recommendation of bifocal glasses soon, and my days of spotting wrong elephants will be over forever. I am getting older, and like that line from a song in my youth goes, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”.
Sooner or later, I will be welcoming you to the Bifocal Club. It is inevitable. See you there.
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