Elderly people looking around for articles of everyday use in a self-induced household mess is a universal phenomenon. This image is epitomised by the absent-minded professor, who is exceptionally gifted but does not seem to possess the ability to remember mundane everyday things. My wife and I belong to this tribe, though we are not ‘exceptionally gifted’ in any sense of the term.
In India, in the good (of course, not so good, in retrospect) old days, the division of labour among the members of the royal entourage was monumental. My mother used to tell me about the arrangements in the household of the erstwhile raja (king) of a small principality called Jhansi. My mother’s father was the dewan of that state.
As was the practice in the ‘good old days’ (not forgetting the attendant pomp and show), there was a large entourage of attendants not only in the ‘court’ but also in the ‘harem’. Each attendant (male as well as female, as the case may be) was assigned a specific task. Those were the days of uni-tasking, as compared to today’s multi-tasking, which is taking a toll on the health and happiness of the present generation.
Be that as it may, I remember my mother telling me about two women attendants in particular in the harem of the spouse of her father’s boss. One of them was assigned the job of telling stories to the so-called queen, to while away her time (which was aplenty, given the extraneous engagements of her lascivious husband) as well as to amuse her, a tough task, even in the best of times, for an unskilled lowly paid employee. Another, a woman of infinite patience (I presume), was ‘required’ to utter hmm or hoon (in approbation as well as a prompt to go on), after every sentence of or a pause in, the narration of the story-teller.
The two specialisations mentioned are only illustrative, not exhaustive, as the legal eagles would have us believe. There were, of course, others, which my mother did not tell us about, I think, because, according to the experts in cognitive abilities, the human mind is not capable of effectively handling more than two variables at a time.
Let me cut back to the present. We have got used to it. Short of standing in the corner of the room designated for keeping the walking stick, not because we think we are sticks but because we have forgotten where the stick is and are in the process of figuring out where we had kept it, we have gone through all the permutations and combinations of forgetfulness in the course of navigating our old age.
I strongly believe that we are in need of the uni-taskers of yore, although we can ill-afford them given our limited resources, comparatively speaking. Wishfully, we need a dedicated attendant to assist us in our various “everyday things”. Let me assure you, it is not about repeatedly missing our dates, a là the ‘absent minded professor’ of the Walt Disney movie, or anything of that sort. It is about more current and mundane things, such as forgetting where the mobile phone is, what a particular item of daily use is popularly known as, what the name of the person we met for the first time yesterday in a big gathering was, and so on.
In particular, a daily chore is to find out where my wife has kept her spectacles. Fortunately, she has only a marginal deviation in her eyesight, which is much better than mine (minus-4), and, therefore, does not necessarily need to wear glasses when she is reading. That is where the problem begins, because a sane person reads only occasionally, especially at our age. Thus the glasses are sporadically taken off and eventually misplaced. Then the frantic search begins in unison; she, me and our live-in assistant. We go here and there as well as up and down, not often, of course. Unfortunately, unlike mobile phones, we cannot make a call to locate the missing object. But perhaps, that is a pointer for future start-ups, ably supported by their angel investors, to put their money where the idea is, and use it the benefit of senior citizens, who will be aplenty in the days to come, all over the world.
Forgetfulness is not the prerogative of the aged alone. Occasionally our grandchildren visit us to spend a day or two with us. In spite of our repeated reminders to them to keep all their everyday articles together, after their emotionally draining departure we find their socks, tooth brushes and other items of daily use strewn all around in the house. So be it.