Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be!

The Ministry of Finance has specific concessions like exempting senior citizens (here it’s 65 years and older) in income tax payments, a rebate of Rs 15,000 or actual tax, whichever is less; another Rs 15,000 as medical insurance; higher bank interest rates; and special senior citizens’ savings schemes.

The Ministries of Railways, Civil Aviation, Road Transport and Telecommunications are also paying special attention to senior citizens. The Chief Justice of India has advised the chief justices of all high courts to accord priority to cases involving older persons.

Goa recently hosted a two-day conference of the National Coordination Committee of Associations of Senior Citizens of India (NACCASCI). Since I was an invitee to the conference, I could informally talk to the delegates from all over India.

The plight of most of our elderly (except about 10 per cent, who can look after themselves; out of these 5 per cent are even looking after others) is indeed dismal. Rough estimates suggest 10 per cent of our senior citizens are drawing pension, 24 per cent live out of income generated by their life’s savings, and 66 per cent are either near or below the poverty line.While the elderly constitute just 7.7 per cent of the population, in absolute numbers that means 77 million, close to the population of Germany.

The demographic profile of senior citizens is also fast changing, in the respect that people who live longer are not any more in ill-health and are quite productive. A few examples were given at the conference. Lord Roll of the House of Lords is the author of the classic History Of Economic Thought, and is an active, lively, inquisitive 96-year-old.

Who has not heard of Alan Greenspan, now 78, guiding and directing economic policies of the world’s most powerful economy for the last 18 odd years?

In India we have 105-year-old Dr Chandiramani of Mumbai, who in July this year was felicitated by the Maharashtra government as the oldest working general practitioner.

When C K Mathews retired from the Atomic Research Centre, Kalpakkam, he could have lived comfortably on his assets and pension. But he mortgaged his house to become an entrepreneur and started a new business with just one helper. Now, at 69, he walks briskly, has 25 employees and runs a Rs 5-crore business.

I’ve seen an Oprah Winfrey show that featured young-looking grandmothers dating people half their age. We have our elderly actress Zohra Sehgal modelling for hearing aids! At 62, Amitabh Bachchan is one of the busiest actors in Bollywood, and at 90, M F Husain is still making waves. British Sikh Fauja Singh (93) is a champion marathon runner.

With better nutrition, cosmetics, active lifestyles, viagra, botox, medicine and surgery, most of today’s educated elderly don’t act or look their chronological age.

Listening to World Radio Network, I gathered that today senior citizens in Germany are those with the most money to spare. The young are busy working and saving, so advertisement agencies target the senior group with older models. A model-providing agency, in fact, complained that 60-year-old models get sent back because they look too young!

In India, Madhya Pradesh seems to be a very forward-looking state. They have a Bill spelling out the whole gamut of relationships: family, progeny, single parents, bachelors and spinsters, duties of state towards senior citizens, duties of children towards their parents/senior citizens.

Today’s young will be tomorrow’s senior citizens. One of the key factors in a nation’s strength and humanity is the way it tackles the demographic patterns emerging with a clear vision.

The author is a retired Indian Navy officer and a social activist