Column | Age of recline

What nonsense is this?” the old man sitting next to me on the bus told me.“Excuse me?” I replied, dear reader, somewhat confused. I was confused on two counts. First of all, I was listening to something on my earphones, and thought I had misheard the gentleman. And secondly, I had actually heard him, but was somewhat surprised that he had chosen to start the conversation this way.I mean, there are so many ways to start conversations these days. Did you see the match? Or, did your exam paper leak? Or, have you been disenfranchised through the process of Special Intensive Revision? Or, is your paneer analogue or digital? Whistler’s Mother (1871) by James McNeill Whistler. | Photo Credit: (WIKIMEDIA COMMONS) So many gentle ways. ‘What nonsense is this?’ seemed a bit extreme.But then my ‘must help all South Asian people abroad if they seem in crisis’ tendency kicked in. And here was this elderly South Asian man on a London bus. Who had spotted some sort of nonsense. Immediately, I whipped out my earphones and offered to help. “Yes, uncle? What happened? Is everything okay?”Dear reader, deep inside, I knew this was a bad idea. Because this tendency has only ever gotten me into trouble.Many years ago, I had visited the city of Basel in Switzerland for a conference. After the conference, I was waiting for a tram that would take me to a remote village in the Swiss wilderness, where my company had found a hotel thatwas cheap enough to meet budgetary constraints. (It was a nice village. There was one restaurant there. And it had one Indian item on the menu. Rice with a side of spring rolls in a beige-coloured gravy.)Anyway, I spotted a South Asian family at the tram stop struggling with the map. They were speaking in some variant of Hindi or Urdu. I walked over and said, “Hi friends, can I help you?”The entire family recoiled from me as if I had offered to personally inject each one of them with Ebola. They clutched their bags to their chests, huddled into a corner, and said, “No thanks! No need! We will manage! No thanks. No need. Please!” I backed off as assorted Swiss people glared at me.But, back to the uncle on the bus.“Why do these people do such things?” he said, pointing his chin at a couple that sat across us on the bus. This was a British couple, in their mid-to-late-60s. Both were clearly going to or coming back from some sort of running activity. They were accoutred in sports shirts, sports shorts, and running shoes. And both carried water bottles.“Did something happen, uncle? Did they say anything?”No, he said. “Is this the age to run and jump? This is the age to sit at home and rest, no? Why are old people in this country like this?”Immediately, I understood what is going on. Readers, there is a peculiar phenomenon that occurs when some old people from our native corner of the world travel to other corners of the world and encounter other elders with different lifestyles.I don’t mean lifestyles from a wealth perspective. But from an activity perspective: running, gymming, socialising in the evening, going to pubs, going on holidays, trekking up mountains, sailing down rivers, and so on. What is the need for all of this, they ask. Is this the age to do gymnastics? What will people think if they see some 65-year-old in a pub at 10 p.m.? It reflects very poorly on the morality of society. They should be sitting at home and taking care of grandchildren or something.Friends, how do I react to this? Simple. By saying absolutely nothing, nodding along in agreement, and then writing passive aggressive columns about such people in the newspaper.But yes, I think we very much need a new word for this phenomenon. And that word is: sitizenship.Example sentence: “My uncle’s sitizenship was triggered the moment he spotted one elderly couple trekking down Ben Nevis. “Poor people. Their children have abandoned them on the mountain. Otherwise, what is the need for this showing off?”Meanwhile, the uncle on the bus got off after two or three stops. It took him merely three minutes to get up, walk to the door, and then step off the bus. But he did it with such social respectability.Have you noticed sitizenship in your area? Escape.The writer helps early stage companies communicate better. He blogs at www.whatay.com.