Age of enterprise: People in 70s & above are picking up trades and hobbies

Renu Sud Sinha, Seema Sachdeva & Sarika Sharma

During the second wave in April last year, Delhi-based Usha Gupta (89) lost her husband of 63 years to Covid. She, however, refused to let this affect her verve. Back home from hospital, she decided to help. “I told my granddaughter Radhika that I wanted to offer monetary help to those affected by the pandemic, as there wasn’t much else I could do at my age.” This spirit of giving is more of a family tradition, started by her husband and being carried forward by her daughters, all doctors, and her grandkids. “My granddaughter though suggested that I should sell my family-favourite pickles and give the money to the Covid-affected. This struck a chord. My grandkids set up an Instagram page ‘Pickled with Love’ and 200 bottles of mango pickle were sold in no time.”

Despite frail health, Usha Gupta has been able to provide meals to more than 65,000 homeless persons across four cities. With nimbu ka achaar on the menu this season, her passion for the cause is unwavering.

Among those who can’t be tied down by age is octogenarian Vidya Mani. She, in fact, likes to count her age by her books, not years. With three to her name already and a fourth one in progress, she took to writing only after 80. A postgraduate in zoology, Vidya was always fond of reading, often clipping stories to read to her grandkids. Writing was a natural progression though publishing stories never occurred to her. “My daughter Arti Ahuja, a bureaucrat, got them published to surprise and motivate me. This was followed by a second anthology, ‘Of Us and Them’. The third, ‘The Last Lap’, was a novel and the fourth is part-memoir, part-fiction,” says Vidya Mani.

Turning 90 next year, this former principal of Government College, Mohali, likes to read books that add to her knowledge. “My preferences are usually history and culture, but I enjoy all sorts of authors, from John Adams to William Dalrymple.” Her first book, ‘The Guide of Destiny’, has proved prophetic for this author, who believes learning never stops at any age.

Delhi-based Sheela Bajaj’s crochet skills didn’t just reinvent old things, but her life as well. “I have been crocheting simple household items all my life. During the lockdown, with much time but no yarn, I unravelled some old sweaters to make cushion covers. My granddaughter Yukti was amazed. ‘Purani cheez ko naya roop de diya,’ she said, and encouraged me to sell these,” says the 79-year-old. She created an Instagram account, CaughtCraftHanded, and uploaded the pictures.

The first order in November 2020 yielded just Rs350, but enough motivation. “The orders have increased. I now work six-seven hours daily,” says the entrepreneur dadi, who now teaches other women and has diversified the product range to include bookmarks, toys, potlis, bottles and mug warmers, foot and ankle warmers, scarves and headbands, et al. So, did she have to learn any new skills too? “Yukti shows me the picture of whatever needs to be made and I do it,” she says.

Chandigarh-based Jugjit Judge (94) always wanted to pursue art at Sir JJ School of Art in her city of birth, Mumbai. Not allowed to follow her passion, she studied to become a dentist and practised for a couple of years, but marriage ended it. In 2007, after her husband passed away, the daughters encouraged her to welcome colours back into her life. Jugjit Judge prefers oil painting over other mediums and loves to do still life. Some of her works have been selected for exhibition at the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh. Death of a daughter in the recent past and advancing years may have slowed her pursuit, but hasn’t dimmed the fire.

Delhi-based Shukla Lal had turned 80, and the nation, 70. For someone who had witnessed India’s rebirth as a 10-year-old who came from Lahore to Amritsar and saw it grow into a developing country, 2017 was a predicament. She felt something was amiss — this wasn’t the India she had grown up in. “We were an inter-communal, inter-religion landscape, but had become something altogether different. And I felt the urge to tell people who we were, what we stood for,” says Shukla Lal, who then wrote her first novel, ‘Rano and Phula’.

At that age, when life moves in slow motion, daughter Sonia Kullar says her mother was, in Lal’s own words, “bubbling up” with ideas. Tell this to Lal, and she breaks into a chuckle. These ideas first manifested in nazms, then short stories and novels. A natural storyteller, her novels are conversational too. “I write simple books, in easy English,” she says. Over the last five years, what began with writing on WhatsApp has graduated to Google Docs, and Shukla Lal has written two more novels — while ‘Floating Logs’ is already out, the other awaits publishing.

Memories are what forced Honorary Captain Darbara Singh to turn writer too. When Indian Armymen were martyred at Galwan in 2020, he found himself under a deluge of recollections from the wars he had fought. “1962, 1965, 1971 — I have seen all three,” says the 80-year-old. Leading a retired life at his village, Pakhoke, in Barnala, he found himself telling stories of these wars to family first, then his friends and the mediapersons next. “My friends suggested I should write a book. And there I was, writing for the first time in my life at 80,” recalls Singh, whose book in Punjabi releases in April.

However, since most books on wars are authored by officers, there wasn’t much to refer to. He had to rely on his memory and fellow soldiers. “The book is about my life as a soldier and the untold side of our story,” he says, humbly sharing that he has never read a book in life. “I am a simple man and spend time praying to God.” But now that one book has gone for print, he has already started work on another one — “a story of my village,” he says.

Through her husband’s 15 postings, her kids’ 11 schools and the 55 houses they changed, Army wife Todo Paintal nurtured her aptitude for art, which provided cathartic release. And then as principal of a kindergarten school, she loved making the charts herself. Art was a passion, but she never thought of taking it up seriously. At 75, however, she enrolled for a diploma in Fine Arts at the Delhi Collage of Art.

“I was surprised to see people working on different mediums while my oeuvre was so limited.” She wasn’t sure if she would be able to do it, but was encouraged by her teacher. And last September, her daughter Tunty Chauhan pushed her to put up her first-ever solo exhibition in Delhi at 79. Todo Paintal says she surprised not just her friends and acquaintances, but also herself. “The media coverage was huge and unexpected,” she says. Explorations of the Himalayan landscapes and her dialogue with the family dominated the show where she engaged with different mediums. “I love to do figures, rural landscapes,” she says.

Just as Todo Paintal engaged with art all her life, Mohali-based Amrit Kaur had been stitching clothes for her family, stocking the fabric scrap to create utilitarian items later. Two years ago, she thought of putting up an exhibition of her creations from waste. The response was heartening. And then came the pandemic, bringing along with it ample time to ideate and create. A second show was organised last October. That too was a sellout. “I had made utilitarian stuff like aprons, table mats, runners, spoon pockets, tea cosies, bags, etc,” says the 74-year-old, adding that the proceeds from this sale went towards charity.

Seventysix-year-old Arvinder Kaur Sidhu of Singhewala village in Muktsar district has always been enthusiastic about everything she does — be it baking, embroidery, macramé, cooking or painting. But making mozzarella cheese was something she had never considered though her husband owned a dairy farm with seven to eight cows. After a chance conversation with her US-returned daughter on cheese-making, Arvinder turned to YouTube to learn. Many hits and trials later, she finally got it right. Her cheese soon became a hit with friends and family. It has now been five years. She says, “I am a workaholic. Making mozzarella has been a great learning experience. There were times when the entire stock would go bad. It takes a day to make 1 kg of mozzarella. The hard work is worth it when people say this is the best mozzarella cheese they’ve ever had.”

All her life, Harminder Kaur, now 75, was so busy taking care of her family, there was hardly any time to think about herself. Her husband died about three years back and then came Covid, creating a huge void in her life. She tried playing the sitar, which she had learnt as a young girl, but faced trouble due to age-related issues like trembling hands. At a social community group for the elderly, she came across pottery. It instantly caught her attention, even as she has been battling dementia. A year-and-a-half since, she feels pottery takes her to another level. “I feel immensely satisfied, relaxed and rejuvenated when I create art with clay,” says this lady from Mohali.

Nothing can stop you from fulfilling your dreams, not even your age. This was proved by Harbhajan Kaur (95), who began selling homemade besan barfi five years ago.

“I always wanted to earn but never got a chance. When I shared this with my daughter Raveena, she suggested that I use my talent of cooking. At 90, I earned my first Rs2,000 after selling 1-kg besan barfi and tomato pickle at an organic market in Chandigarh. The sense of pride and joy I felt was something I had never experienced.” The two years of Covid were the busiest for this grand old lady, who feels nothing can be more empowering than earning your own money. Her range of products has expanded to sherbets, achaars, chutneys and ice creams. Her Insta page, managed by her grand daughter-in-law, boasts of thousands of followers. Her message, “It is never too late to learn something new. You just need the courage to make a beginning.”