Grey matter

How old should one be to be old? There was a poet who was horrified at the prospect of turning six-and-twenty: Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five? he cried. He died at 36. What indeed is old age? Immaculate self-containment would suggest that old age is that which is nowhere near your age; sarkari records would coldly calculate it as the age of retirement,anything between 55 and 65,when you take leave of a buzzy professional life and can supposedly live off superannuation and the distraction your grandchildren provide. But what about politics or business or indeed poetry,where you determine your age of retirement? V.S. Achuthanandan,87,M. Karunanidhi,86,Manmohan Singh,79,and Pranab Mukherjee,76,have yet to decide on that.

The relevant but still oh-so-touchy issue of aging politicians in India has gained traction less from two octogenarian chief ministers leading their respective front in the assembly polls of Kerala and Tamil Nadu,than from Rahul Gandhi delivering his last blow to VS just before the campaign wound up,telling Kerala voters that they would end up with a 92-year-old CM if they voted the Left back to power. The young Gandhi may have spoken to the wrong audience,for Kerala is fast turning into a paradise of pensioners. And the logic of supporting Karunanidhi and deriding VS,separated by a few months,may be questionable. But he has nevertheless touched off an issue that is only tangentially and warily spoken of in Indian politics.

What,however,remains a mystery is why in a political culture in which leaders in their fifties are considered young,Rahul Gandhis Congress has taken such offence to him being called a baby?