The miserable life of the old and aged people
- Part 2 -

Waikhom Damodar Singh *

The most miserable stage or period of old age life follows or begins by losing his hearing power, with the beginning of insanity and losing his memory, which the writer's very close friend, Dr Irengbam Mohendro Singh, born and brought up in Uripok, Khoisnam Leikai, Imphal (youngest son of late I Gulamjat Singh, a pioneer Meitei Engineer and a very devout Krishna Bhakta and younger brother of late I Gokulchandra Singh, retired Chief Engineer of Manipur and also a devout Krishna Bhakta) and now settled in England (Bradford) with his English lady wife, Margaret Leah Robson, son Neil, a legal Editor and daughter Anita, a journalist, writes in one of his very interesting series of articles in the weekly "Diaspora Speaks" column of The Sangai Express, Imphal, entitled "Senior Moments". As very rightly described in his article, such 'brain choiba' or 'peng choiba' in Manipuri occurs to many aged people as a very natural human ageing process.

Sometimes, the writer who has passed well 80 of his age had felt the same effect-unable to remember quickly the names of some of the people and things who were once quite acquainted with him. Also the writer who had been quite active in playing outdoor games (particularly hockey) from his childhood days and later on with the hard military trainings that he had undergone frequently outside the State, at the Assam Regimental Training Centre, Happy Valley, Shillong in 1956 for senior NCC Officer's pre-commission training, Kampte in 1958 (Senior NCC Officers' refresher course), Indian Army War Academy at Mhow in 1961 (Platoon Officers Weapon Course), National Police Training Academy, earlier located at Mount Abu, Rajasthan in 1964 for initial police training along with the 16th batch of IPS probationers has now started feeling quite weak in his physical activities and other old age effects.

The most miserable period of old age phenomenon is-losing of eye sight (seeing power-dristi). Becoming weak physically, losing of teeth, hearing power etc are something which are manageable to carry on somehow by an aged person but losing of his eye sith, power of seeing, he is doomed forever in his worldly living. By the grace of God, the writer has been gifted or endowed with a good eye sight and hearing power, both still functioning quite normally, and therefore he solacing his last stage of life by reading religious and historical books, in particular the holiest of the Holy Books, the Bhagavad Gita and History of Manipur and writing articles of all mixed subjects as some sort of a hobby which makes him spend his difficult days of life somehow.

The writer is not an 'atheist' but a firm believer in the existence of a Supernatural Being called God, who is given various names by different faiths, though He is only one Being supposed to be existing since eternity and will be existing till an 'endless Time.'

Possessing of His mystic powers of capabilties of doing mystic things are undescribable and unknowable by human material knowledge and His dimensions of existence is 'ashim'-immeasurable like that of the dimensions of Space and Time-can anyone exactly say where ends the dimension of Space in all the four directions and since When the existence of Space and Time began and when they will end ? The writer's firm belief in the existence of the so called God is not for any 'material gain' but for gaining the 'fruit or nectar of devotion to Him' by which does really bring some inner divine light which illuminates the darkness of the worldly human life as have been experienced by all the saints and religious persons i.e it enlightens our dark thinkings-God said-"Always abide with me so that you will be able to proceed your worldly dark journey in a path illuminated by me with no worries and sorrows of the worldly material living" which multiply endlessly with more hankering of the endless material desire.

However the logic of truth in the saying, "actually Man created God instead of He created Man" cannot be set aside straightaway as during the cave man stage of the human beings, some 50,000 years ago, when their brains were in the immatured and undeveloped stage, there was no concept of God in their brain. He was then busy only with his primitive survivial, searching for food and taking precautions for protecting them from the attacks of ferocious wild animals by hiding in the caves and it was only when his brain became much developed that he started speculating on the wonders of nature that he sees in his surroundings, all the heavenly and earthly things.

When he could not fully understand or grasp the scientific reasons of their existence in the very unique ways a simple conclusion came to his mind, a concept of the existence of the Supernatural Being as the causer of all the things happening called God. Thus the existence of God came in and in his virgin mind that is how God was created by man His existence began since then. In this respect, I fully align with the Godless, atheistic concept of my learned friend Dr Mohendro Singh. Further I fully agree with his very tenable argument that there is no such thing as "life after death" of a living being as its life "ends instantly" with the stopping of the functioning of his body-machine which produces the nergy by its works ends. Dr I Mohendro Singh very rightly says-no has been dead and has come back to deliver a lecture in the Oxford University on the life he continued or experienced after his death, that also when his dead material body has been consigned to flames or buried underneath the earth and remained in highly putrified (decomposed) state with bacteias and worms enjoying on it.

However I would like to differ with Dr Singh in the interpretations of "Religion and Science." Both are, no doubt knowledge, and the knowledge of Science is material and therefore limited in its dimensions whereas Religion is a "Spiritual knowledge" with no limits in its dimensions-boundary and vista and there Dr Mohendro's sincere "quest beyond religion" of God should also be within a limited boundary for knowing about the unique existence of the Supernatural Being, Who is the absolute truth and the self caused One causing all the causes of the existence of the Cosmic world as their effects, since nothing can be effected or can take place without a cause caused by a Causer-plain example of this fact is-smoke cannot be produced as an effect of the cause of burning something without the burning of it started externally by a burner as the causer of the burning process.

It is my firm belief that "prayer to God" is the tonic of the ills and sorrows of the minds of the human beings, particularly for a helpless old aged person who has lost all his body strength, vitality, hearing power and eye sight, in particular and thus he could anyhow remain in 'solace' awaiting his inevitable death forgetting of it to some extent, i.e "prayer to God gives some strength to human mind in resisting its ills and sorrows" and courage at the time of calamities.

In an interview fo selection of Sub-Inspectors of Police held at Manipur Training School something in 1987/88 the writer as the Chairman of the Selection Board put IQ test question to the candidates whether they believed in the existence of God. All the candidates answered Yes and No when asked if they had seen Him. If not seen Him physically why should you believe in his existence-you see the car parking there so it is true and that it is existing physically but in the case of God, no one has actually seen Him physically but still the entire people of the world except a few very ardently believe in his very existence, why so ?

None could give a befitting answer to the "catching question" except a tribal candidate-he very intelligently asnwered-Sir even though he is unseen to our eyes by believing in his existence we get boosted in our 'morale and self confidence'-this is exactly the fact of believing in an unseen God, by praying to and remembering Him the relentless-monkey-like human mind can be brought to a steady or tranquil state and moreover gain a lot of self confidence and more importantly, in the encouragement of morals and "courage" in particular-that is the why the soldiers are taught to charge in their final hand-to-hand assault over their enemines with loudly calling out the name of God fearlessly with bayonets, khukris and swords like done by the Sikh soldiers with their loud blood curdling war cries, "sat shri akal" and in the case of the earlier Meitei soldiers, "Jai jai Durga Mai ki Jai."

To be continued...