The 'Silver World' of senior citizens in 2012

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

Life, they say rotates around at times in full circles. If you have lived a rather long life, be sure that your children you have advised have now begun to advise you. My son (one of them really) recently gave me advice on how to keep my library tidy.

"Amma, Get rid of all the old magazines"

I stared at him in horror. For me (irrational me), "Old" corresponds to "Of vintage". Old magazines just entrance me and hug me with ancient and mystic tenderness. As my son almost mercilessly bundled up the old magazines for disposal my eyes fell on one, screaming the blurb "The world in 2012". I retrieved it in time before the old newspaper cart drove it away. These carters of a particular ethnic community once suspected by the general populace of transporting bombs under newspapers and old magazines seem to be slowly making their appearance again to fill hungry tummies back home. Carving a kingdom of their own is the furthest from their ambitions while they wretchedly toil to make ends meet.

Back to the Mag. I just gloated over its contents. A large sub-section of the magazine was allotted to the silver world. I got curioser and curioser for the magazine has been published in 2002, 7 years before the year we live in and we are two years close to 2012 since we are living in the last decades of 2009. I can still count not having yet fallen victim to memory lapse diseases and brashly going on to further mental exercise I just tried to fathom how close we have come to the world of 2012.

Since "The world of 2012" covered a broad spectrum of topics hinging on politics, business school and society, for the sake of brevity I decided for the present to limit myself to changes in society that has the eye - catching title "Young at heart". These Young at Heart are the over 60s also called the Senior citizens. The essay strangely begins with this statement.

"From toys and theme park rides for old folk to cosmetics for pallid skin, even youth obsessed industries are retooling for our aging planet".

So the planet is aging, not by itself but with old folk. I am sorry to disappoint the readers but the writer Stefan Theil seems mostly not to generalize on worldwide data but on data from one country. He is reporting from Kihabara Shopping District, Tokyo. Well. Prosperous Tokyo is a far cry from our own but yet the survey could throw some light on emerging trends in our society too, especially among the more affluent. Further in the field of demography Japan and our country share a common feature in that both have a top heavy population with the over 60s increasing in number. And who knows, now that the Devil has departed and the war is over what with all the rosy plans ahead we might be economically proximate to Japan come 2012. Nothing pays like optimism.So I read on. The writer informs that on the streets of 2012 once dominated by electronic dealers and toy stores a new business is opening its doors.

That is to say (if any over 60 is dumb enough not to understand) that the child population has vastly decreased in 2012 while the old population has bloated in numbers and forms the main segment of the shopping population. Here too one can draw a parallel. The child population of the major community in our country is said to rapidly decrease what with them getting transformed into the main disciples of Family Planning Gurus.

Back to the article, along the streets flash advertisements of whalebone walking canes (I wish I could get one) and the newest high-tech wheel chairs.

Goes on the writer now planted in 2012, "Three doors down, at one of the few surviving electronic gadget stores, Sony's new snap - on cholesterol sensors are all the rage. But few of the stores are doing well. The once livelihood neighbourhood (perhaps made lively by the laughter of children) is being taken over by undertakers, doctors' practices and Silver Age Hotels whose bright neon signs advertise tiny cubicles and nursing robots. A robot nursing a senior citizen! How enviable is 2012 Tokyo from where the sneaking, lyingstealing human attendant has fled. Well. Not all are of this calibre. No robot can acquire the tender touch of a human nor that soothing crooning human voice. May be, miracles can generate these too as features of robots. Weird? Not exactly.

In Japan the over 80s (not over 60s) have reached 9 million. These undoubtedly include the Comfort Women of the 2nd World War, a disgraceful patch on Japanese morality. Once beautiful wenches the Japanese militia turned them to what they are today - helpless old women, whom nobody wanted to marry as they had been toys in male hands. Well, to come back to Theil's tale, "with fewer children every year, Tokyo will soon start thinning out as Japan's population continues its long decline". He calls the process, "The silvering of our planet - it is a future in which the aging population of rich nations produces a bleak panorama of crises, from collapsing pension plans to recessions poverty and upheaval." The picture pervades in many other countries too making a UN report declare this to be the greatest social challenge of the 21st Century.

But there is a brighter side too or a brighter way of looking at things. Industries that traditionally cater to youth, toy companies amusement parks all over the world are reinvesting themselves for its senior citizens. Envy us, the attention.

"From housing to autos, robotics to consumer electronics the consumer market is increasingly driven by aging baby boomers. In the cosmetics industry products advertised for mature skin already account for about of those companies skin care sales and are rising fast."

He asks a very relevant question. "Is it so inconceivable that come 2012, we will look back and marvel at all the economic potential unleashed by the aging of the planet?" But yet I feel guilty writing all this based on a foreign and probably urbanized writer's comments in turn mostly based on shopping patterns and business trends in affluent countries. What about our old men and women huddled in their mud huts in our dry zone chenas or those over 60s sleeping on Colombo pavements shivering as rain drenches them or those awaiting for months, nay years in hospital beds for Maraya or Demon of Deth to rid them of an incurable affliction and end life's woes? Will a country's growing prosperity and enhancement of its welfare measures touch them in equal proportion?

Then only we can truly say that the Silvering of the Planet has its brighter side too. (Peregrinations into the future, 2012 to be specific, in other spheres will be dealt with if space can be procured).