OMG, I am a quinquagenarian!

 

Image Credit: Kelly Roper

I'm like a backward berry, un-ripened on the vine, for all my friends are fifty, and I'm only forty-nine.” — Ogden Nash. One can understand the keenness and rush to join the 50s Club😊

Getting into the 50s age group is indeed a milestone. Some say, life begins at fifty! My daughter says, Pops you are soon going to be a senior citizen☹ I say, folks what the heck, we are in the best phase of our lives!

Did you know, a person between 50 and 59 is called a quinquagenarian? This almost unpronounceable term is as per Brittanica Dictionary! ( https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/Age-by-Decade). In modern lingo, we are part of the Gen X (sandwiched between the baby boomers and the millennials).

Well, I am a proud quinquagenarian as ours has been a truly remarkable transitional generation that has kinda been the glue between the traditional and the modern. I am sure other generations / decadal age groups will claim to be the same, and will also furnish facts to substantiate their claims. While I don’t want to pick up a fight with either the quadragenarians or the sexagenarians or the septuagenarians, but what the heck - I believe we the quinquagenarian generation, are the real deal!

Having traversed through the unadulterated carefree fun-filled school days, the adventurous college days, the hard yards put in during the early to mid-stage of our work lives, raising our families, having our own houses and cars and savings/investments, having travelled to multiple countries for official / business work or family vacays, reaching senior positions in our careers, seeing our children getting settled, for some of us attaining head of the family status with the unfortunate loss of some near and dear ones (like parents or in-laws), et al – I would say has been an action-packed inning played by our age group till date.

We quinquagenarians nostalgically bade goodbye to the ubiquitous Black & White TVs, Transistor Receiver Radio Sets, Tape Recorders, Two-in-One Sets, Walkman’s, Pagers, PCs, Floppy Disks, CDs, VCPs, VCRs, HandyCam’s, Tapes, Cassettes, Post Cards, Inland Letters, Telegrams, Money Orders, Postage Stamps, Revenue Stamps, Milk Bottles, Newspapers, Wall Calendars, Trunk Calls, STD Booths, Ambassador/Fiat/ Maruti 800/Zen/Santro Cars, Bajaj & Vespa Scooters, Rickshaws, Circus, Theaters, Photo Albums, Fixed/Landline Telephones, Faxes, 2G/3G Nokia/Ericsson Mobiles …., the list can go on and on.

Things our generation swore by like Blackberry is no more, and soon maybe emails are gonna be passe (some already call it snail mail)! There is no Sean Connery or Roger Moore any more as James Bond, no more magic from Maradona or Platini, no more chants of Kapil Dev or Sachin Tendulkar nor there is Kishore Kumar any more to belt out new numbers. But that’s life.

We quinquagenarians along the way have also embraced either warmly or boldly or reluctantly or sceptically or suspiciously (depending on what it was / is and in various degrees of appreciation) the “New”s that life has been throwing at us, right from Tech, Apps, Concepts, Ways of Life, etc.  The list would include stuff like Smart Phones & Smart Watches, Colour LED & HD TVs, Handhelds & Tablets, eBooks & eReaders, FB & Twitter & Insta & WhatsApp, Alexa & Siri, Malls & Hyper Marts, Multiplexes & OTT, Amazon & Flipkart, Paytm & Google Pay, SUVs & EVs, Covishield & Covaxin, WFH & Hybrid Work, Made in China & Made in India, Messi & Ronaldo & Mbappe, Virat Kohli & Steve Smith & now SKY, Avengers & Jurassic Park……, again the list can go in and on.

Next what? I would say before we become sexagenarians, some areas to focus and allot more time, money and energy would look like the below list of To Dos / Decade Resolutions:

Health - Seriously needs to be considered as ‘wealth’, at least NOW! We need to read us out the riot act and act on it. Quit the bubbly and the smoke, no or less junk food, no or less eating out, physical & mental fitness, time for a bicycle again, increasing health insurance cover, amongst many others.

Finances – While keeping at adding to the kitty till we can or want to, we need to plan for the years after hanging up the boots (how, when, how much). Excel is really handy!

Travel & Vacations – By God’s grace and our hard work, we have accumulated enough to indulge now (till health and body permits). We are permitted to create our bucket list; our spouses deserve it and now is the time to travel to those wish listed exotic / adventure / romantic / out of the circuit places (depending on our profile type). Apart from bucket-listed foreign locales, there are so much India has to offer that we may not have explored even once. Frequency of such trips would of course be based on the state of our health and wealth!

Prepare for Empty Nest – First there will be the meticulous planning and the frenzied activity of the children’s wedding, expenses, guests, relatives, etc. Then the bitter and hard reality will strike. The house will no longer feel like the way it used to. We need to figure out an immediate term and short-term coping mechanism to cope with the same, before we get used to this reality of life.

Get Back in Touch – The relatives / extended family and the school / college / work friends, with whom we would have lost touch with over the years, would be a great source of reviving memories and reunions.

Hobbies & Passion – It may be worth the while to revive some old passions or hobbies or things we liked to do or had decent abilities with. It could be in areas like sports, creativity, music, etc. I have already initiated with one of mine – writing (let’s not bother about the topic and being judged) 😊

Inner Spirituality – At some stage we also need to prepare for setting up a communication channel with our inner selves and also the Almighty. Can start at this phase too, if one wants too - Yoga, Art of Living, Ramakrishna Math amongst others are some avenues that come to my mind.

So, folks in the fifties or nearing that - Forget the Age and Live Life, wisely! Adios amigos.

Author: Subham Sarkar (https://www.linkedin.com/in/subham-sarkar-519b7114/)

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are purely written in an individual capacity and based on the personal opinions and quirks of the author. No offence is meant to other age groups intentionally or unintentionally.