A GLORIOUS CENTURY

Today is my mother in law’s 100^th birthday! It isn't every day somebody turns a century old. I'm so glad she is one of the lucky few. It's such a blessing to have her in our life. Happy 100th birthday! It is a great occasion for the family and all her children and grand children and great grand children will be around this weekend to celebrate this momentous family occasion. Her family has started arriving in the city from all parts of the country and the world and we are looking forward to a joyous family reunion, an occasion God has most gracefully bestowed upon us! Lucknow is still very cold for an outdoor celebration for a 100 years young lady so the family has decided to postpone the big party for a far gentler spring day in future but this weekend will be an all family affair, at her abode.

I was just wondering what it means to be 100 years old and though life expectancies worldwide are increasing but in 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians worldwide, but in India there are only 27,000! Japan currently has the greatest number of known centenarians of any nation with 67,824 according to their 2017 census!

She was born in 1917, so what was India like in 1917? We were still 30 years from being an independent nation, one large British colony which was considered the jewel in their crown. In 1917 the Champaran Satyagrah was started in the Champaran district of Bihar against the British Raj. Under Colonial era laws, many tenant farmers were forced to grow some indigo on a portion of their land as a condition of their tenancy. This indigo was used to make dye. The Germans had invented a cheaper artificial dye so the demand for indigo fell. Some tenants paid more rent in return for being let off having to grow indigo. However, during the First World War the German dye ceased to be available and so indigo became profitable again. Thus many tenants were once again forced to grow it on a portion of their land- as was required by their lease. Naturally, this created much anger and resentment and hence the Satyagrah. Gandhi had already been back in India for two years, and two leading statesmen who had guided Gandhi’s politics in his South African life, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Dadabhai Naroji recently passed away.

It was the era of silent movies with Jamshedji Framji Madan producing Satyawadi Raja Harishchandra, a remake of Phalke's Raja Harishchandra (1913). So, they were making remakes even then! Transportation was by walking, palanquins, bullock carts and horse carriages and ricshaws came after two decades in 1940! Trains were pulled by steam engines and diesel or electric engines came in 1925, though in 1920, electric lighting of signals was introduced between Dadar and Currey Road in Bombay. The trams in Calcutta, Bombay and Chennai were horse drawn but getting electrified and there were trams in Delhi, Kanpur, Nashik, Bhavnagar, Patna and Cochin as well.

And what do you think was happening in the rest of the world in 1917? By this time the Russian Revolution took place in 1917 led by the indomitable Vladamir Ilich Lenin. Many countries were involved in the First World War for three years by then and the same would continue for one more year. But there was a silver lining for the women of the world. They entered the workforce. Many were skeptical about letting women take on roles that traditionally belonged to men, as women were seen fit only to take care of their homes and children. When the men went off to war, the women at home undertook their jobs in addition to running their homes and caring for their children. In this way, the women supported the war effort in numerous ways — and their expectations for themselves shifted as well.

By 1917, there were more than 100 day nurseries across England to provide childcare for those women who had to go off to work. Towards the end of 1917, there were more than 250,000 British women working as farm laborers, working the land, and doing chores, such as milking cows and picking fruit. So with women doing men’s jobs at the same time that they held things together at home, they were no longer considered inferior to men. This started the Suffragist movement, the demand by the women for extension of the "franchise", or the right to vote in public elections. In America too WWI proved beneficial to the women’s suffrage movement, advancing the suffragettes’ cause. Suffragist demonstrations outside Woodrow Wilson’s White House culminated in the “Night of Terror” in November 1917, where many women were arrested for picketing in support of a federal amendment granting women the right to vote. All this did not go in vain as women in Britain over the age of 30, meeting certain property qualifications, were given the right to vote in 1918, and in 1928 suffrage was extended to all women over the age of 21.

Clothings and fashion too saw a sea change in 1917. As more women joined the workforce, however, they needed appropriate clothing. Shirtwaists and tailored suits appeared, and women ditched their cumbersome underskirts.

And do you know who else was born in 1917 and whom Amma has outlived – former Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi (died in 1984), Mr. M.G. Ramachandran, actor, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (died in 1987), Mr. T. Nagi Reddy, communist politician (died in 1976), and the legendary director of television serial ‘Ramayan’, Mr. Ramanand Sagar (died in 2005)!

Thomas T. Perls, the director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University feels that Centenarians will often have many friends, strong ties to relatives and high self-esteem. My mother in law fits this description perfectly! In addition, some research suggests that the offspring of centenarians are more likely to age in better cardiovascular health than their peers. So there is good news for my wife Neeta and her siblings as well!!

So Happy Birthday Amma! We all wish you many happy returns of the day! We hope and pray that you live a happy and healthy life to be a supercentenerian, as that is a landmak just a decade away!