My sister-in-law decided at fifty seven that she was sick and tired of autos and cabs, and bought h
erself a car. Then she decided that she didn’t enjoy being at the mercy of paid drivers, and learnt to drive herself around in the lovely Chennai traffic. At 60 she was gifted her first Smartphone and discovered the magical world of apps and whatsapp, gaana and skype, messaging all and sundry, eagerly learning from her grand-daughter.
My dad bought his first mobile phone at sixty, and learnt to send out SMS at seventy, and then, armed with a camera phone at eighty, started clicking pictures of everything and everyone around him and sharing with his grand-children.
Another cousin at sixty, learnt to use email and skype, and got herself an account on facebook, when her son relocated to the US. Now she is the one Paati who the young ones hangout with on cyber space!
Nothing earth-shattering in the new skills they learnt. All of it is commonplace, stuff that we don’t even think about as a ‘skill’, something that is a given for many of us, and definitely for Gen Y. But for my dad and my sister in law and my cousin who were not exposed to technology and did not come armed with a EEE, it was a transformational experience. And among their peer group, they are pretty much the outliers.
What caused them to learn these things at an age where most of their peers don’t bother to? I started thinking about what was common between the three of them. And came up with three qualities…..
The first was the compulsion, the need for the new skill that was so great, that it overshadowed any hesitation, any fear, or any lethargy, that came in the way. And that ‘necessity’ was a big motivator, a driver. The need to connect with her son, the frustration of not being able to move around the city, the need to connect with children and family who are too busy to pick up calls………….
Second, I found that all three of them never hesitated to reach out, and ask help from the younger members of the family – youngsters who could mentor and teach them – of course without missing the opportunity to make them the butt of many jokes. Reverse mentoring doesn’t just have to happen at the work place. It happens so beautifully in the family, with grandchildren happily mentoring grand-parents on the mysteries of technology.
The last, was a common character that I have seen in all three of them. They don’t think of their ‘age’ as a reason to stop growing or learning. There is a sense of wonder and curiosity that feeds the fire in them. My dad’s engineering mind is eager, at eighty, to set up a home network even though he isn’t familiar with it. The openness to learn keeps them young keeps them positive and keeps them growing too!
Each of them, and many more like them, continue to inspire me, to motivate me to keep learning new things and to keep adding to myself!
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