The Centenarians

In an age of fast foods and fizzy drinks, the experiences of six centenarians have much to teach us about how to keep the body fit and the mind active and young

“You treat your body well, the body treats you well, too,” says India’s oldest (reportedly) centenarian, who breaks into puns and quips at the drop of a hat. His bank says he is 127-years-old.

But his family tree, a blurry parchment in Urdu, marks 1869 to be his year of birth. That makes him as old as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. And as old as the Suez Canal. Habib Mian lives at Ghat ki Guni, near the famous heritage garden, Sisodia Rani ka Bagh on Agra Road in Jaipur city. The burden of age may have taken away his vision, but not his enthusiasm for life. He recently questioned a bank clerk why he was being asked to nominate someone when he had no intention of dying any time soon.

“My teeth are intact. In fact, they fall and grow back. This is the third time,” he claims. He loves to talk, recite Tulsidas and fondly recalls the first movie he watched, Kimti Ansu in 1927. And he loves food. “Chicken roti khao, allah ke gun gayo,” (Eat chicken-chapatti and praise the Lord) he rolls with glee. Mian eats one desi ghee parantha in the morning and at night. A glass of milk in the afternoon is a must and four to six cups of tea. And he looks forward to his favourite meal of korma and kalakand every Sunday. His favourite memory is buying kalakand for one paisa in his youth. The secret of his long life? “No addiction—tobacco or liquor.”

Son of a bhishtiwallah, he helped out as a stable hand, became a clarinet player and retired as a band master from the erstwhile Jaipur royalty. He did his daily chores on his own until last year when he fractured his knee. He lives with his family of 26, across six generations, who are now trying to put him up for the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest man in the world. Old age has brought him kudos: an ‘Aabe-e-Jaipur’ (Lustre of Jaipur) from the mayor and mention in the Limca Book of Records. His biggest moment was when President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam visited him last April.

-By Rohit Parihar

“Why are you asking me to name a nominee? I have no intention of dying soon.
HABIB MIAN GHAT KI GUNI, JAIPUR

105 years
SHARFUDDIN QUADRI
Unani practitioner, Kolkata

His day begins at 7 in the evening. His patients crowd around the tiny Swadeshi Dawakhana that he runs in central Kolkata. A lane that his patients (he treats for free) have been clogging up every evening for the last 75 years. “They’ll come till 1.30 in the morning,” says the city’s oldest unani medicine practitioner. Around two in the morning, he goes for his walks along the sleepy streets and returns home only at 6 in the morning. Hakim Saheb never wakes up before noon and sustains himself on two cups of “laal cha” and one frugal meal a day—a roti or a small bowl of rice. “I have so much work that I end up not eating anything for nearly 15 days a month”. Truly, he has done a lot in one lifetime. He participated in the Dandi March, was jailed in Cuttack as a freedom fighter, learnt the sitar for 14 years from ustads Wazir Khan and Inayat Khan, discovered over 40 unani medicines and founded the city’s only unani medical college. He looks like the friendly old wizard he is, but no one would believe he was born on December 25, 1901, unless they saw his Padma Bhushan citation from the President of India. Ask him if he considers his life fruitful and he recites Tagore: “Moron jedin ashbey tomar dwarey, shedin ki diye pujibey tarey?” (When death comes to your doorstep, what will you worship him with?).

-By Swagata Sen

109 years
THAYAMMA
Homemaker, Coimbatore

“I do all my work myself. I don’t rely on anyone to do anything for me,” says Thayamma of Coimbatore. Every day, she wakes at 5.30 a.m. and sets out for a brisk walk (“No, I don’t need a walking stick. There’s nothing wrong with me except my hearing.”) and is back by six to prepare a cup of coffee for herself and her breakfast—three idlis or dosas. She then washes her clothes (“I’m fussy about cleanliness”), grinds the idly-dosa dough in an unwieldy hand-grinder (“Even my eldest daughter, 80, finds it tough”) and cooks lunch (“I like making my own food.”). Lunch at 12.30 is a doctor’s delight: two cups of rice, green vegetables and an egg. Two hours of napping, tea at 4.30 and Thyamma is out again for a walk. After dinner at eight—three chapattis and a cup of milk—she drifts off. Active life and frugal diet hold the key to her long life.

Thayamma has seen five generations—116 people. Her husband, a cotton merchant, died 30 years ago. Of her 10 children, her eldest daughter is 80. But Thyamma is more fit than her. She walks with a spring in her steps and climbs up and down the stairs without effort. “When my mother feels lonely she calls us over. Otherwise there is no problem at all from her side,” says Jayabal, her tenth son, born when she was in her 50s. Thyamma, by the way, has never been to a hospital. What does she wish for? “All my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are doing fine. I don’t have any wishes left. Only a peaceful death.”

-By Lakshmi Subramaniam

106 years
ROSAKUTTY
Homemaker, Edamakudi, Kerala

She saw her grandchildren using computers and developed a craving to beat them at it. When she first walked in to enroll herself, the teachers fell off their chairs at the state-sponsored e-literacy camp in her village. But within days, she took to the mouse and keyboard like a fish to water. Rosakutty is India’s only—and perhaps the world’s oldest—computer student. And her indomitable spirit is the key to her long life, say gerontologists. For, unlike most centenarians Rosakutty doesn’t have enormously healthy habits. She doesn’t thrive on greens and fruits. For her, no meal is complete unless there’s some spicy fish, chicken, lamb or beef curry with it. What’s more, she’s hooked on snuff and smokes the occasional beedi. Yet she has no illnesses, bathes herself, walks few miles a day without effort and does small chores in the kitchen efficiently.

She was born in 1892 in Kerala, the year top-grade cricket kicked off in India and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes hit the stands in Britain. All the rest are little more than footnotes in history, but Rosakutty is very much a part of the present. In white chatta-mundu and huge gold earrings, she may look like a typical granny. But one knows better.

-By Ashok K. Damodaran

102 years
PARVATI AMMAL
Homemaker, Chennai

Vitamin C is probably the life-enhancer for her. She gorged on mangoes all her life. That and the long walks she took daily in her youth. No wonder, she bounced back from a major hip surgery in record time this year and started walking—a medical miracle.

115 years
KARTAR SINGH
Farmer, Ludhiana

He was born on a farm in Ludhiana. He resides there and leads an active life, still working in the farm and feeding his cattle twice a day. His outlook on life is as rugged as the view from his home. His tips on longevity? “That’s easy—exercise, working in the fields and no bad habits.”

GUEST COLUMN

Living better and Longer How can you maximise happiness, no matter how old you are? Don’t fight old age, just embrace it. Age healthily as you go through life.   PICTURE SPEAK Dr Andrew Wiel The goal is to work towards ‘compression of morbidity’ Modern societies are programmed to see ageing as a catastrophe. But ageing is a universal process. Animals age, plants age, mountains age, stars age. If ageing is written into the laws of the universe, then resisting it would be to put oneself into a wrong relationship with nature. The key lies in accepting the ageing process and learning the principles of lifestyle. I call it ‘healthy ageing’: maintaining health as you go through life. The scientific community focuses on the ‘why’ of ageing. For me, the moot question is ‘how’: how we can shorten our period of decline, so that at any age we have the energy and the capacity to enjoy life? It is very helpful to seek out people who are examples of healthy ageing and see what they have to teach us. Ageing and longevity are partly determined by genes and partly by lifestyle. Acceptance of the ageing process really means learning the principles of lifestyle—eating right, sleeping right, moving right, reducing stress, maintaining good relations and playfulness, keeping the mind active, using the best of natural and preventive methods in everyday life. Make gradual changes in lifestyle. Do things in little steps and build on them. A common problem is that people make lofty resolutions, try it for a while and then give up. But if you work to adjust your lifestyle gradually—walking a few extra miles, making an effort to cook a meal yourself—you notice positive changes, you start feeling better and the motivation grows. There are certain things that better with age—whiskey, wine, cheese, trees, violins, antiques. If you look at whiskey, age smoothes out its rawness, adds depth and complexity, adds flavours, and concentrates what’s desirable. At the same time, there is the evaporation of what is less consequential. I think, it’s fairly easy to see analogies in human life. Ageing can increase value by concentrating what is most worthy and by allowing what’s inconsequential to dissipate. As people get older, diseases become more frequent. But does getting old necessarily mean getting sick? The answer clearly is ‘no’. It is possible to delay the onset of age-related diseases. So the point is to live long and well and then have a rapid drop-off at the end. The goal for me is to work toward ‘compression of morbidity’—a lovely term where morbidity has the medical meaning of sickness. A wonderful story did the rounds in the US some months ago. A Los Angeles transit road worker had worked at the job every day until he was 101. On his 101st birthday, his co-workers and friends gave a huge party. The next day, he died. That is compression of morbidity. And that is what I urge you all to work toward. (Andrew Weil, a Harvard MD, teaches at the University of Arizona, US. He is the author of Healthy Aging among other bestsellers.)

Index