Triple Stream - Long Life and Immortality

TRIPLE STREAM: EDITORIAL

LONG LIFE AND IMMORTALITY

At the very heart of humanity lies the oldest and the deepest desire of all - to live for ever.

From times immemorial man wanted to live long - to blowout atleast a hundred birth day candles although life is likened to the exercise of licking honey from a thorn. However, life had its charms and death had its terrors. Even Upanishads, particularly ‘ISA’ Upanishad, advise that human beings should endeavour to live for a hundred years, performing actions of the right type. Old age is praised for its gifts of experience, wisdom, maturity and mellowed judgement. CICERO, the Roman philosopher said: “Old age lacks the heavy banquet, the loaded table, the brimfull cup. Therefore it lacks drunkenness, indigestion and insomnia”. Of course this claim is based upon the presumption that old people do not indulge in over-eating, drinking and the excesses of all kinds. But psychologists say that it is difficult to change the habits formed in youth. A character in a novel said “Having savoured the heady wine of youth, I could not now alter my course”. Old habits die hard.

Death is a fact of evolution which we want to alter, if possible. In fact, death lays its icy hand on human beings before they fully realise their aspirations and implement their blue prints for a brilliant future. In his book ‘TO METHUSELAH’ George Bernard Shaw says that in the present ordering of the world man is due to die almost before he has learned to live. It is indeed tragic. This being so, the remedy suggested by Bernard Shaw is that the duration of life must be extended. That is why he selected that title to the book. Methuselah is the man who lived for 969 years according to the Bible. But in Bernard Shaw’s play there is nothing in the last three Acts to show that long livers would be really happy and an extended span of life would be worthwhile.

During the last sixty and odd years of researches in the field of health and implementation of the measures of family planning, people have been getting born less and less and have also died less and less. Longevity specialists like LEONARD HAYFLICK, the author of ‘HOW And Why We Age’ made deep study and research in gerontology and published their path-breaking and revolutionary discoveries. Experiments have confirmed the existence of a sort of hour glass in each cell of the human body which fixes the timing of its death. If this time-keeping element in the cell is, found out, it should be possible to extend its life. Human cells are also being made in labs which cannot be distinguished from the original cells.

In recent years, nutrition experts have discovered that fruits and green vegetables contain anti-oxidants which drive out the pernicious elements from the body and extend the duration of human life. Jeffrey Kluger says in his article ‘Can we stay young?’ (published in Readers Digest, June 1997) that a person who manages with a diet of 1500 calories a day will get 30 years of life! Not bad. Karapatra Swamy used to eat only a palmful of food. The scientific explanation is: when calories are restricted, body temperature drops about one degree celsius. Lower temperature means a less vigorous metabolism, which means processing of less food. It is encouraging to note according to another specialist that calorie restriction takes us beyond the life-span of an octogenarian. If we cannot live up to Sri Krishna’s age (120), we can live atleast upto Buddha’s age (80) simply by drastic cut in our diet! Jeffre Kluger says “Immortality may be impossible but 4 or 5 additional decades will sound like a splendid first step”.

Even a long-liver like Rabindranath Tagore felt that his best was not good enough for him as sufficient time was not available during his life. He wrote “I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung”. Preparation was longer than performance! Many septuagenarians and octogenarians made similar plaint/complaint about their unfinished tasks.

However, there are many people who think that long life without youthful strength and stamina is more a curse than a blessing. The poet describes the aged: “Their temples glistening with the frost of life’s autumn, oldmen climb into crazy wagons”. Shakespeare says “Age is unnecessary” (King Lear). Johnson says “Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage”. Wordsworth says “Oh, Sir, the good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Bum to the socket”. As the last rays of the sun disappear in the sky, the long night begins. There is geriatric retardation if not arrestation. As our tissues stiffen, muscles become rigid, habits become set, we go through the same motions every day when we become doddering, mumbling and senile, going downhill slowly sinking into the sun-set. Bertrand Russell in his essay ‘The Menace of Old Age’ comments: “One of the greatest perils of our time has crept upon us almost un-observed. The skill of the medical profession has prolonged the span of human life but has not learned to prolong human capacity”. Considered impartially, old age living may seem so drab, dreary and demanding an art that old age ought to be optional rather than compulsory! Many oldsters are inclined to grow to youth, given a half chance. “If life were just, we would be born old and achieve youth about the time we have saved enough to enjoy” (NANA). Of course, this refers to the financial travails of old age!

D.H. LAWRENCE writes in his poem ‘A Ship of Death’:-­

‘From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free
We thank with brief thanks-giving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives for ever
That dead men rise up never
That even the weariest river
Winds some where safe to sea’ -

In Tennyson’s poem ‘TITHONUS’, God has granted immortality to Tithonus in response to the latter’s prayer. But Tithonus repents for the mistake made by him in asking for immortality. God granted his prayer but, what is the use of long life without youth?

‘Ah me, Ay me, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burden to the ground
Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath
And after many a summer dies the swan
Me only cruel immortality consumes’.

He thinks that immortality is cruel! He repents for his stupidity in asking from God a favour which was more in the nature of punishment.

‘Alas for this gray shadow, once a man –
­So glorious in beauty and thy choice ...
I asked thee “Give me immortality”
. . . .
Let me go, take thy gift
Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pass, as is most meet for all?’
. . . .

Thus Tithonus has realised by his bitter experience that long life without youth is useless. “The Gods themselves cannot take their gifts”! Even in our scriptures and classics there are stories which prove that age without energy is undesirable. For example, Yayati, the King borrowed the youth of his son Pururuva so that he could enjoy the pleasures of life longer in his old age (from our scriptures)

There is another aspect of longlife which cannot be underestimated. Today, all positions of political power are concentrated in the hands of old, old people (beyond 65). Naturally, younger persons are disappointed because they have to wait for interminably long periods for the old to retire or die. This has happened particularly in our country. Senior leaders do not groom their successors. They are like banyan trees which dry up all the moisture in the surrounding soil so that younger plants cannot grow under them. Queen Victoria of England reigned so long that whole generations of politicians and writers came and went while she indestructibly occupied the throne. Some of our new rulers of democracy who are senile and imbecile but cling to office are like the old man in the song of whom it is said “He is dead but won’t lie down”.

Jonathan Swift anticipated this situation long ago and suggested a remedy that at the age of eighty a man suspected of undue longevity should be deprived of his vote and his property. Our Chief Election Commissioners (who are perhaps not too old) should bear this wise counsel in mind, if and when the electoral laws are reformed in our country which is more a functioning anarchy than a democracy. Bertrand Russell went a step farther than Jonathan Swift and suggested that all medical men below 60 should band themselves together into a league for the defence of youth and they should prevent all scientific researches calculated to prolong the life of the very old! Drastic maladies require desperate remedies. Of what use is it to stretch life from an endless past to insipid infinity?

‘It is better to blaze forth for a moment than to smoulder for an eternity –Mahabharata.

- I. V. Chalapati Rao