2013 What a whopper from an age stopper!

Gaston de Rosayro

Just when I was getting used to yesterday and the old year, along came 2013 and another New Year. No, I have made no resolutions. What is the point! Because at my age I do not have to worry about avoiding temptation. As I grow older, I have discovered that temptation avoids me!

I used to wonder if there would ever come a time in my life when I would be bashful about my age and try to ignore birthdays. But one thing I know is I could never get away with hiding my age. That is because our island nation is such a tiny universe.

It simply is not possible because of the hordes of people you went to school with. Whether you live in the same small city that is Colombo or any other township there is the likelihood of knowing somebody’s somebody you went to school with.

All my classmates know my age just as I know theirs. They would fall over laughing if I tried to pull that sort of inanity on them! Meaning it is not exactly a crime attempting to shave off a few years, especially when I determine my physical age as opposed to the chronological.

The more intelligent among you would have realised by now that my body when measured by the physical age yardstick makes me a much younger man. Still I am not a fussbudget about my age. Also, I’m not into the occupation of attracting women, because I got mine a long time ago.

In addition, I am not the type to begin lusting after my lost youth when mine was spent mostly downing double drams and writing what I like. Two things I am pretty darn good at, even if I do say so myself.

But as far as I am concerned old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald, they do not recognise you. Poor chappies, and it has happened to them just when I was beginning to become a household word, even if it is in my own household!

All the same, boys will be boys and so will a lot of middle-aged old men. For many of them middle age is when their age starts to show around their middle. You can say any darn thing about me, but be aware that I still have something on the ball, but I am just too tired to bounce it.

All right, so some of us of the class of ‘65 recently went to this exclusive restaurant for a reunion celebration. While sipping our drinks I recommended the black pepper sirloin steak. My friend Maurice held his hand up in protest and said: “Not on your life. If I sink my teeth into a steak they will stay embedded there!” Then at a recent party we had to rush Mad Maurice to emergency. He was showing off on the dance floor trying to do the ‘Hokey Pokey’ and put his left hip out, and it stayed out!

But certain ageing women do take the art of credibility to a point of no return. There is this grande dame, Princy. In her youth everyone in the neighbourhood recognised her as a real sporting schoolgirl. A national athlete of sorts, I believe. But her fame or rather infamy spread because of her tempestuous liaison with a sugar-daddy tycoon. Strangely, the association turned out to be one of stability and peaceful cohabitation. And oh, yes, she was soon wading up to her neck in lots of ‘moolah’ while being showered with dazzling diamonds.

Many of her contemporaries and schoolmates who had settled into conservative middle-class marriages whispered some very nasty about her ‘tight pants and loose morals.’But she seemed unmoved by the scurrilous gossip and when confronted by a holier-than-thou type of envious peer coolly quipped: “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one.”

But then as most smart and successful personalities do she made the mistake of trying to conceal her age. Ah yes, thrust into social prominence she made the mistake of imagining that the secret of staying young was to lie shamelessly about her age. It certainly was easier for someone of her wealthy disposition to fib about her age because of the astounding advances in age-defying procedures in dermatology that could help erase some of the results of the skin’s ageing.

Yes, she was certainly considered an influential figure in the Colombo social circuit. She threw lavish parties at the most fashionable hotels and was often written about in the newspapers social columns. Speculation about her real age began after she had established herself as a socialite and decided to throw the grand-daddy of all parties to celebrate her landmark birthday.

Now as we all know 50 is a nice age for a woman, especially when she happens to be 60. Months before the birthday Princy demanded publicity claiming that she was approaching 50. And everyone could not help wondering from what direction. Well she was long past pushing 50 but all the same was clinging on to it for dear life.

Princy’s secret was not safe with her classmates because they did not want to be left 10 years ahead of her. Former school friends said she was older than she claimed and by nothing short of a decade. And I am talking about the testimony of some 47 of her classmates, leaving out a few who have graduated to the Great Beyond, who all claimed to be 62 in the shade two years after the event.

My friend Sir Chepps who can be awfully acerbic at times quipped: “No siree, she is not old by any standards, rather she appears to be chronologically gifted. But as old Vadivel from Yarlpanam put it more crudely: “Blatty yell, I shay, she is now claiming to have lived in a time warp for a whole blatty 10 years, yaar!” Then there was the lovely Malka, Princy’s one-time classmate who at a cocktail party told Sir Chepps within ear-shot of the socialite: “She has certainly aged to perfection as a rare, classified and well-preserved antique. No Cheppers boy, she is not 60 something, she is now only 20 with 42 years experience of living behind her.”

We moved in to avoid a cat-fight but Princy with admirable humour said: “Hello Malka! I am too young to be this old. I demand a recount!” Everyone around laughed while Sir Chepps countered: “But Princy darling, it does not matter because whatever they say, you are still young at heart. Although, perhaps slightly older in other places!”

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