It’s okay if one lives a long life and is able to monitor well his routine health wise. But long means how long after all –beyond 60s, beyond 80s or even beyond 100 years? It is fine if an individual can manage a better health till the end of his/ her life. This is not easy, as at a particular level of age, even necessary health precautions don’t work and the very body system stops responding to them with the result that the person concerned has to live a very miserable sort of life –he/ she gets doomed to undergo one hardship after the other, feels crippled with grassy wrinkles on the face and is unable to move at all finding it difficult to even discharge the night soil and the urine, most often causing it in the bed only to a great embarrassment to the family members. Family members too, with certain exceptions of course, harness themselves to the task of looking after them as a compulsory ritual without putting their heart into it. This is actually the stage when one should call it a day to life with no further longing to continue living as such.

As brought out by the media, I came to know of one Jagat Mushahary, who is himself 126 years old and, as he tells, his father, Naukha Mushahari, lived for 135 years. Surprising as it looks to be, Jagat Mushahary is hale and hearty even at this age, but the question is as to how many can afford to live up to that level of age maintaining their physical faculties intact. Exceptions apart, life beyond a certain upper limit of age is nothing but a sheer curse not worth living at all.