Thursday, December 26, 2019

353: Seven and sixty three

Monday Musings: 7 and 63
I chanced upon this news item recently and having my attention sufficiently triggered went on to research it a bit more. In the year 1964 ITV a British station commissioned a documentary featuring 14 children all aged 7, picked up from a cross section of backgrounds to represent a slice of British life, directed by one Michael David Apted (who would later go on to direct many TV series and award winning movies including the James Bond movie ‘The world is not enough’).
Michael on his part did not stop at that. Even since 1964 he has gone back to those 14 kids every 7 years, a good 9 times and in some sense tried to capture those lives till their age 63 and how those lives have turned out. I have not seen those documentaries and hence do not have an opinion on how those lives have turned out, but the idea of capturing the flight of time through 14 lives is breathtakingly existential.
Here are some of the thoughts mutating in my mind since then.
What would the various ages mean to those 14 if one were to take stock every 7 years? What would be the narrative they will hold in these pauses. Let me hazard a guess with the caveat that I could be way off the mark.
Seven would have been an age of wanting things, eating favorites, sleeping peacefully and snuggling in the warmth of parents knowing and believing that is the most secure and permanently secure place in the world.
Fourteen would have been the age of wanting to grow up fast and have more freedom, of wanting to be accepted and liked, of looking at adults with envy, for their strength, youth, vigor and being able to take their own decisions.
Twenty-one would have been the age to look good, have even more freedom, particularly more money and the decision where to spend it. It would also be the age of envy and a few heart breaks. Believing in ideals would come naturally to them and there will be a happily thereafter in all things. The idea of everlasting youth, everlasting love and everlasting happiness would drive the idealism of thoughts and actions.
Twenty-eight would be the year of idealism. The body would have bloomed fully, the mind would be ready to take on all challenges and the heart would be ready to let come all that is beautiful. There would be beauty in small things and large and being swept off their feet would not only be possible but also desired. They would be ready to take on the world.
Thirty-five would be when a rhythm would set in or at least it would appear that way. There will be onset of the feeling of growing up too fast. The burden of responsibilities would start to interfere with small joys and large and an early realization would start to set – that one cannot have it all, that one has to make choices. A few scars would have been earned by now.
Forty-two would be when it would first dawn upon them that half of life as we know it is well behind them. Joys will be muted and celebrations would not be as much fun as they used to be. Cynicism would be fully formed. Ageing parents would be difficult to accept. The rose tinted idealism would start to fray either at its margins and worse cases at its core. Being a believer in things, people and relationships would take more and more efforts.
Forty-nine is when it would have hit them hard. The greys in the temple would have emerged, the furrows on the head would have started to show and with that also attempts to conceal them in any which way would increase. Friends would start to appear old and jaded, overweight and balding, silly and repetitive.
Fifty-six would have been when they would have been decisively old, whether they accept or not. Children would defy them and they might not recognize the ways of the world anymore. They might even want the old order back, not because it was better but only because it was familiar. The body would show signs of ageing in many possible formations. Regrets possibly would be more than dreams and mortality would have become amply obvious. The flame would flicker brighter in one last desperate attempt.
Sixty-three would be the age of finally questioning the meaning of it all. It would be when some would take stock and ask if it was a life well lived and worth living. Even though many years would still be left but deep questions would have been asked about faith and forgiveness, principles and lack of them, of too much patience or the lack of it, or too much faith or the lack of it, of too much importance to things that had not mattered and too little to those did
matter. Rearview would become more important than the road ahead.
Having attempted a guess at the minds of those 14, may be its time to look back at my own during these ages. Who knows what might I find tucked under the layers of those years!!!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Guru,
    you have explained well;in what situation someone be after each 7 years interval. May be some readers will relate it to themself. Keep writing to satisfy our hunger to read.

    ReplyDelete