Long life a blessing, not always!

We pride ourselves on our unique form of greeting, Ayubowan that means 'May you have long life'. But is long life alone enough? Not under present circumstances when financial constraints make life for the very elderly a nightmare. The spectre of loneliness machinated by a busy world with no time to pause by the frail and the phenomenon of time hanging unspent too haunt one. Further, sickness in various forms begins to wrap around the frail bodies that make many an ageing man and woman wail in self-pity, "Better if I had died young before getting subject to this avalanche of varied misfortunes". Some are germane to certain countries, sorry about the alliteration but Germany, more specifically a segment of the elderly men and women gets included in the list.

Anyway on and off I have followed the fortunes of this mighty country that I visited for a short stint. Home to many a philosopher, it is more famous or infamous for its war mongers, mostly Adolf Hitler who instrumentalising racial egotism precipitated a World War and was responsible for millions of deaths.

The gas chambers which I longed to see, but never saw can be described as the ultimate in human cruelty. And why did those unfortunate humans undergo such terrible ends? Purely because they belonged to a different ethnic community. The holocaust as it is called has yet to find a parallel in human cruelty.

Climax

The dreadful events gradually embroiling the whole world and reaching their climax were staged mostly in the 1940 decade with Hitler paying his ultimate price in the same decade, by shooting himself.

Those of us who were born in the early part of the 1940 decade or born in the earlier decade yet carry our war memories. Planes flying high above in procession, school drills to prepare for invasions that however never took place except for the solitary Japanese attack on the metropolis, patriotic speeches by school heads to foster loyalty to the mother country and pouring blasphemy on the Natzis never seen by any local person or child, food drives since ships crossing the oceans carrying the food were often intercepted by the "foe".

In fact the Second World War was the Mother of All Wars. And the irony was that most Asians were unaware for what cause the war was being fought.

The "Mother Country" the Great Britain had worked its charm to capture devotees, including even the great Mahatma Gandhi.

Now, with the universe heading towards total destruction with a Mad Man frenzied by Aryan identity symbolised by the Swasthika, the former territorial aggrandizement seemed so slight.

Criminal offences

Anyway we are straying from the topic. As mentioned this situation can refer to a certain population segment in Germany. We may add Japan too, both playing the villain in the second World War that spelt an ignominious end for both. To explain, the elderly Germans and female Japanese today in addition to those traumas face a peculiar fate, that of criminal offences during the Second World War.

Were they born in the 1930s and 1940s like a few of us still travelling the weary path? No. Much earlier.

In fact by this time those born in the 1920 decade or so were robust enough to hold posts in the infamous Hitler regime manning many a powerful post.

Today "blessed with long life" they are in their late 90s or even older and are prey to Germany's Central Office for the investigation of the Nationalist Socialist Crimes. Today tables turning and toppling, a hunt has begun for those who aided and abetted murder in the 1940s.

Guards

Here is a quote, "Six women, among 50 males, who were guards at the Auschwitz death camp are being investigated on suspicion of complicity. All women are now in their 90s". The men could not be any younger. That is the price for living so long from the 1920s up to the present. Had they expired before the government machinery in the country got streamlined to punish those responsible for mass murder, they would have escaped the punishment.

One begins to muse or ponder. Did these men and women commit these crimes on their own initiative? No. It was on State initiative. They were simply holding State posts.

And now an institution in the same country is holding them to ransom.

And they are just helpless.

The spills from the war table of the 1940s are not confined to these Germans alone. Remember, Japan was an active ally. Japan invented a new and strange species called "The Comfort Women". They were officially assigned the task of comforting soldiers in the battlefields. The more attractive females were chosen, talented in dancing and singing and socially outgoing so that they would perform their "comfort" tasks better.

This again happened in the 1940s. No doubt the dames, at least a good part of them at that time prided themselves on being so chosen. Not only were they bamboozled into thinking that they were performing a patriotic service by providing company to soldiers fighting, sorry, a losing battle but they, as the saying goes, had the time of their life one merry-go-round.

They little realised that chances of marriage were now dim for them since they were even linked to prostitution, due to their free association with the soldiers.

Compensation

So today they, at least those who have managed to live that long to the 90s, bundle themselves into associations asking compensation from the State for dishevelling their lives.

Annually they parade in processions, feeble and tottering and aided by walking sticks only. No grandchildren to hold their hands, no soldiers they comforted come to their aid for most of them too are by now dead. Even those who are living find the old women least appealing now. But yet, these men and women, in Germany and Japan and perhaps in some other countries were on H.M.S., His or Her Majesty's Service. It is all so unfair.

Is the title a misnomer? Perhaps I should have titled, it "The unpredictable vagaries of life"