Do you remember the era of your grandfather and grandfather? Where did they go every evening – to a temple, school or community cultural meeting. Our grandmothers often used to say in the kitchen – ‘I don’t know what is it in those places that after returning from a day’s work, we don’t stay home even for 15 minutes.’ I don’t know about others, but most of the elders of that time in our chawl were definitely busy in some cultural activity or the other. Later my father also became like this. He used to hold meetings on Mondays in the ‘South Indian Association’, the organization that runs ‘Saraswati Vidyalaya’ in Nagpur. I studied in this school and about 90% of the children of those 150 houses spread over three units studied there. Most of the people of those houses were associated with some temple, whose meetings were held on Tuesday or Thursday. Cultural programs were held on Saturday and Sunday. Like, Carnatic music concert, drama of nomadic troupe. Sometimes children’s ‘Arangetram’, in which they used to perform in public for the first time or a saint from South India would come and give religious discourses for 15 days or a month on subjects like Ramayana, Lord Shiva, his son Lord Kartikeya or Durga Maa. Now let me tell you something different from this topic. Most of the men in my family and in the area where I spent my childhood – who kept themselves active in cultural activities – lived to be over 90 or at least into their 80s. While their wives passed away first. At that time none of us knew that it could have something to do with spending time in art and culture. But I remembered this incident this Wednesday, when I read a research by University College London that engaging in cultural activity once a week can slow down the pace of aging by at least a year. Research says that cultural activities today include reading, listening to music concerts, visiting art galleries and theatres, painting, playing musical instruments, watching art documentaries and visiting museums or exhibitions. In fact, I watched more cultural programs with my grandparents in my childhood than in my adult life. My maternal grandfather never missed going to the temple morning and evening. It was from him that I got into the habit of listening to concerts and sermons. Even today I am a life member of many ‘sabhas’ like Powai Fine Arts Society and Shanmukhananda Sabha. Watching live performances is a great pleasure for me. Since I am a performer myself, I learn from the body language, choice of words and sense of humor of the artists. Live performance teaches me more than cinema. Recently on May 12, my daughter went to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in the entire day she could not see more than three floors of the five-story building. While sitting in Mumbai, he showed me those floors over video call. As a result, today I can talk on modern art for at least five minutes. Such connections keep me from thinking about my ‘Sisyphus’-like endless to-do list. Be it watching a football or cricket match in the stadium, I like to go out and connect with something that is much bigger than me and that I cannot do alone. Peeking into another world and understanding our own possibilities fascinates me. The bottom line is that even though modern research claims that involvement in cultural activities adds a few years to life, our elders probably already knew that it certainly makes life more meaningful.
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N. Raghuraman’s column: Stay immersed in art, it will slow down your ageing.
