Wish list of an octogenarian

Sometimes, when I look around, I wish I belonged to Gen Z. I would then be digitally active and more tech-savvy, diverse, purpose-driven, and anxious. I would also be more socially conscious with preference for visual communication apps such as TikTok and Instagram. I could also just go out on to the streets to protest. A protest against what? I really don’t know. Perhaps to register frustration with my life. I wish I could wander aimlessly in malls.

I wish I could go back in life, just a little. I wish I could get six or seven hours of uninterrupted deep sleep at night, and not feel sleepy during the day. Get up early in the morning for a brisk walk. Come back and read the newspaper leisurely over a cup of tea.

Have a relaxed breakfast a little later, followed by a snooze, perhaps. Get ready and sit at my desktop to regularly punch in an article. But that is not easy now with failing eyesight. I wish I could develop a new hobby consistent with my age and physical condition. I wish I got more phone calls from relatives and friends than spams and frauds. I also wish that my calls to friends and relatives did not go to voice mail, never to be returned.

I wish I could watch, in old-style dim-lit single theatres classics such as Come September, Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, and My Fair Lady; as well as all-time great Bollywwod movies such as Mother India, Awara, Mughal-e-Azam, Sangam, Aradhana, Guide, Anand, and Veer Zara.

I wish to sit listening endlessly to iconic songs of Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Manna Dey, Jagjit Singh. Not to forget Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Jim Reeves, Joan Baez, Beatles, Stevie Wonder.

I wish to re-read some of the fiction and non-fiction classics, such as the works of Premchand, Sharad Chandra, Mahadevi Verma, Jaishankar Prasad, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Wordsworth, Carlisle, Byron, and Tennyson. I wish I could also read all those books which I always wanted to, but could not do so now on account of failing eye-sight.

Full house

I wish our home had members of various generations, rather than just two octogenarians. While the younger ones would keep us entertained with their antics, the older ones would help us with some of our chores. They would force us out of home quite willingly and take us to places we have not been to before. There will be song, dance and some drama to make life more liveable.

I wish we had some more houses in the neighbourhood we could visit than the standard few pitstops. I wish I could also restore and reignite old relationships and friendships to their pristine purity, the cheerful abandon of which has gone away on account of time, distances, and misunderstandings. I wish all of them long and healthy life. I wish some, who have left us, could come back alive.

Once in a while, on a bright Sunday morning in winter, my wife and I want to go and have lunch in the lawns of a club, to spend some time with a friend or a relation. I call up several of them to check their convenience. I wish at least one of them agreed to accept our hospitality. We do not want to end up ordering a Domino’s pizza at home.

Most of all, I wish I could really go back in time to when, as a three-year old, I was jumping around in the house, with a flag in my hand, chanting “Remember 15 August” (on August 15, 1947, of course). I had slipped and fell. My chin hit a bed-post and I got a deep gash; I carry the ‘remembrance’, as a scar, till today.

Life is running on a single engine at present; but the spirit is still willing. I wish the flesh too was equally strong.

vkagnihotri25@gmail.com

Published – March 01, 2026 05:06 am IST