Participant: Yesterday, in the last class of ‘Tattered Coat or Magic Stick: Imagining Old Age through Literature from Global South and Global North’, we were discussing the treatment of elderly people in India and in the West. One thing that I have noticed in the attitude and behaviour towards the older people in India is that they are expected to represent their old age through attire and their own social behaviour. This is especially notable in the case of older women (though not strictly gender-specific) that the color of their clothes is expected to be lighter shades. Old men and women are rarely seen wearing bright colors and are often found in clothes of light or faded colours, if not completely white. In the case of women, accessories are also expected to be very limited and minimal. Their engagement in romantic relationships is also frowned upon.
I am curious whether these customs exist in Western countries. If yes, then do you think this represents the gradual dehumanization of older people, as they are expected to tone down their liveliness and it also anticipates their gradual departure as active, able-bodied members of society?

Prof Tess Maginess: A most interesting question. I would say that nowadays, older women (myself included) in the west can dress in any colour. But when I was growing up (I was born in 1955), it was definitely the case that older women wore dark colours – I knew some older women who wore black as they were widows. Or older women wore pastel shades – but never bright colours!
As for romantic relationships, I cannot comment on relationships plural as I am a happily married lady, but I do get the impression that many women my age are involved in romantic relationships if they are single. And, yes, in days gone by, I think it would have been considered a little bit scandalous to even think of romance over the age of 30!
It is interesting , though, how age is gendered? What about men’s clothes? Do older men dress differently from younger men in India?
There is here a sense that there are certain styles more than colours which are a bit age defined – so a lady of 70 in a tight, short leather skirt might attract some adverse criticism (‘mutton dressed as lamb’), but, it must be said, a man of the same age with a 1970s hippie look or sporting a 1980s glitter look might attract some mockery also. The classic here is the man who is losing his hair with a little ponytail! But, I think there is also a fair amount of tolerance – people being given a sort of permission to dress how they want.

Participant: Thank you so much for answering my query. As you were asking, older men in India are also criticised if dressed in what is considered as youngsters clothes such as bright colors and bedazzled outfits. I have noticed, in the part of India I live, that Older men, especially of middle class often turn to traditional Kurta or Panjabi (of lighter, ‘sober’ color tones also) as their daily outfit. While common women are expected to wear Saree (the traditional Indian cloth for women) in rural and suburban areas after their marriage from young age, men wear Kurta and punjabi when they are old and retired.

Prof Tess Maginess: Well, that is very interesting. We used to have more of a rural urban difference but the world has become so small a place, has it not, due to 'globalisation'? Whether this inexorable  modernisation is always a good thing, is, of course, a different question. Research seems to indicate fairly clearly that the more vulnerable groups, the poor, the old, those living with disabilities, are likely to be far more at the mercy of global forces, including climate change. Pramod is most knowledgeable about this.

Prof Pramod K Nayar: The rural-urban divide in matters of ageing and care is a real one. Migration has affected these domains too. Some of you may want to consult a few resources we compiled.

Participant: We had discussed Anita Desai's "A Devoted Son" in the last class and I had a question regarding an observation that you had made. You had spoken about how Desai uses the western method of the volta or the turn while writing the short story, the turn being Varma's sudden change in temper and health due to his sickness. I wanted to know whether such a turn is unique to western short stories. If yes, how so and what is the history behind the usage? Do Indian or South Asian storytelling not usually make use of this technique?

Prof Tess Maginess: Thank you very much for your very interesting question. I have not read enough south Asian fiction to be able to answer this precisely. However, I would say that, just as with Irish writing, Indian writing in English, perhaps inevitably, draws upon Western literature for its models, though, of course, often fusing these Western approaches to the literary short story with older oral forms – which is what I think is happening here.
The origin of the volta or ‘turn’ goes back as far as Homer. It is usually associated with poetry, especially sonnets, but we can see that short story writers use it too.
A turn of thought or argument in poetry is called the volta. It is a rhetorical shift. In some ways, it is a dramatic change in emotions or thoughts that the poet is expressing in the poem. Different poets and critics have named it differently. Some call ‘volta’ as ‘turn’ to maintain simple terminology. A critic, John Ciardi, calls it ‘fulcrum’ and another calls it ‘the center.’ It has various other names such as ‘swerve’ or ‘focus’ or ‘emotional pitch’.
My esteemed colleagues, Pramod and Anna will be able to say more about the use of the volta in south Asian and Indian texts.
James Joyce uses a related term – epiphany – to denote that moment when the protagonist has a kind of revelation of how things really are. But, of course, often in Joyce’s stories, this is not accompanied by a move from passivity to activity, from powerlessness to agency, which is what happens in Desai’s story.
We also have the enactment of another common literary pattern in Western drama– the servant/master relationship. Very often the ‘turn’ involves a switch or reversal in which the servant – or powerless person – becomes master of the situation in some way. Perhaps that is why some critics talk about power relations in texts and why I referred briefly to the idea of the relationship between father and son as a kind of image or allegory of the relationship between coloniser and colonised.
Finally, may I note, that in another class I am involved with, there are a number of older Indian ladies and we were talking about family relationships and one lady pointed out how common the gesture of a son touching his father’s feet was. I did not know this, and perhaps it is a thing of the past entirely. Please tell me  what you think about that.

Prof Pramod K Nayar: The 'twist-in-the-tale' formula is an established one in many cultural traditions. In the Euro-American one this was a speciality of Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, O Henry and several others. 
We find in the stories of Asian traditions, such as the Kathasaritsagar and even the Jatakas, this mode of concluding the story.

Participant: Thank you for today's insightful session! Looking forward to the next classes as well.
I had a thought regarding the concept of caring that was discussed by you and Dr. Nayar. I was wondering about the concept of filial care (the duty of adult children to take care of their aging parents) and how the concept undertakes a revisioning when the children/wards have physical impairments or disabilities. In such a case, it may be interesting to think of the pause in the individual processes/activities associated with aging for the parents, such as investing in an old-age home, stopping work, and retiring, as discussed in class today. This pause becomes more prominent when we think of middle and low-income families where the adults have to work/earn despite their impending old age. Thus, the linear trajectories of children (from being dependent on adults to being independent) and adults (from being independent to being dependent on children) face complications in such scenarios, especially in less-developed countries where job opportunities for people with disabilities are hard to find/limited to urban spaces. 
I look forward to your thoughts on this.

Prof Tess Maginess: First of all, thank you for your kind comments. And thank you for your very interesting and apposite question. Indeed, I think this situation is quite common. And I am, as a carer, familiar with it also in Northern Ireland.
Perhaps this is something you might like to write about – there is another intersectorality then, caregiving from or to a relative who lives with impairments. This could be filial or sibling or spouse/partner.
Very often it is the case here also that spouses or partners, themselves suffering from problems associated with ageing, are left to care for a spouse who is more unwell than they are. Often this is a wife caring for a husband, but sometimes it is the other way round and that engenders another sort of problem as most men, despite the rhetoric on the ‘metrosexual’ tend not still to feel comfortable or skilled in the role of caregiver.
We do have some provision here for ‘care in the community’, where paid carers come in to help relieve the family member, but it is subject very much to an increasingly privatised business model, even though we are supposed to have, with the National Health Service, a free health care system at the point of delivery.
Happy to talk more about this.

Participant: Thank you, Ma'am! You have given me a lot to think about. Looking forward to the next session on Tuesday.