Thoughts on reaching 81

Every birthday I share my thoughts on this page. While it's a pleasant surprise to be alive and having lived longer than most of my relatives, I can't help wondering why I've lasted so long, considering that long ago I was told that I wouldn't make it to 40. Later this figure was revised to 70, and as recently as seven years back, a doctor predicted that I wouldn't last more than a year (he said it because I'd questioned his diagnosis and he was offended). The poor chap himself died of Covid a couple of years later.

I've always been interested in why some closely related people die earlier than their more fortunate cousins. Someone asked me why people should yearn and pray to live long, since the last ten years of one's life are filled with health problems. I'm inclined to agree. I lived a relatively painless life until the age of 75, but every year after that it's been an ordeal getting up in the morning. Doctors usually prescribe pain killers, but I've refused to take that route. It was old age that caused me to drive into a barrier and damage my car two years back. After that, I rarely drove, but when I escaped another horrible accident, I gave up driving completely.

Of course, there are people I know who are older than I am, including two relatives (both brothers), but they have a younger brother (three years younger than me) who is not in good health. Then there is the neighbor who is 91, always smiling and still healthy. In the north of the country, some people live up to the age of a hundred, in fact there used to be a Muslim in the former Soviet Union (in an area close to north Pakistan) who reportedly died at the age of 165. Of course, there was no way of verifying his actual age, which is why I still don't believe it.

Just for the record, I don't want to live that long. 

At last, my first book (The real Pakistan) is out

I must've started writing at the age of eight. In fact, even before that, my schoolteachers had discovered that I was very good in English and Arithmetic. None of my siblings or cousins were like me. When  I was eight, English newspapers like DAWN and The Morning News had children's sections in their Sunday editions where I would submit my pieces. Most of what I wrote in those years has been lost, but after internet came to Karachi I was able to save most of what I wrote and got published.

For a long time, friends and relatives had been urging me to write a book containing my articles and published works. I had resisted, thinking that printing a book would prove to be very expensive. My daughter Sana however convinced me that an e-book would be worthwhile. In fact, it was she who collected all my articles and gathered them for publication, so I would say she deserves full credit for getting the book published. 

Finally, my first book ("The real Pakistan") is available on Amazon. My deepest regret is that most people in their seventies and eighties have stopped reading books and even newspapers, so I doubt if they'd be interested. However, it will be of interest to those who want to know what Pakistan was like in one of the most turbulent periods in its existence. I think it will particularly interest Indian writers and students of politics, as Pakistan and India were on the brink of a nuclear war just a month ago. I won't be surprised if it is banned in India, as it contains some unpalatable facts about Narender Modi. There is quite a lot in the book about some Pakistani politicians as well, so I expect to receive some flak from those who like them.

The book is available for USD 1.50 at https://amzn.eu/d/ezw1g2h Happy reading!

Old age & health problems

A couple of days back the blood pressure of my 85 year old cousin dropped suddenly while he was driving. His car damaged two vehicles as he passed out. He has been the healthiest relative of mine, so I was really shocked. I gave up driving after ramming into the barriers outside the building I live in two years back.

This year my health has noticeably declined. This winter, which ended last week, I had intense pain in my legs. I used to hear from old people about such things but I never expected that it would happen to me. In the morning, it takes me a long time to get out of bed. I've also lost my balance a couple of times. I hope I don't end up with a broken hand or leg. So what can I do? I've seldom taken pain killers, but now it looks like I will have to. Fortunately I'm still able to walk three or four kms daily, though not as fast as previously.

Am I spending too much on vitamins?

I was first introduced to vitamin tablets in 1959 (when I was only 15) by a maternal uncle who had recently shifted to Karachi from Bombay. The name of the tablet was "Vitaminets" (manufactured in Switzerland). I remember that it used to make me very hungry. One tablet cost half a rupee (in those days, beef was Rs. 1 per kg). I went on consuming vitamins until 1989, when a homeopath told me I was wasting good money. But ten years later I again started consuming vitamin tablets and have continued doing so, despite the cost. I take a multivitamin mineral tablet, a Vitamin C 500 mg tablet and a Vitamin D capsule (2000 IU) in the morning, another vitamin D tablet (800 IU) after dinner, besides the vitamins in chocolate milk which I consume at breakfast. But then I've come across people who don't take any vitamins at all and are still enjoying good health.

One relative, a smoker, has never heard of vitamin pills, yet he's perfectly healthy (he's two years younger than I am). Another is a manager in a firm, and he too has saved a lot over all these years by not taking vitamin capsules, even though he's from a beef-eating family. So I've started to wonder if I should stop consuming vitamin pills or go on taking them. 

I'm grateful for being relatively healthy

I don't socialize much, in fact I absolutely avoid going to those wedding dinners (unless a close relative is the groom). In fact, there's a late night dinner this week (the bridegroom is a nephew of my son-in-law), but I've declined to attend, even though I've hurt so many relatives. But I do go to those events where I know I'll be back home by eleven at the latest. Last week, I attended the annual dinner hosted by my club for life members. I was shocked to see so many of my relatives and other Memons in such bad health.

There were those younger than me who needed a walking stick, there were others who couldn't walk without assistance, and there was one (a distant relative and boyhood friend) who was in a wheel-chair, but not being able to talk (he suffers from Parkinson's disease). It really depressed me, knowing that I too could have been in their shoes. 

Yesterday, a school friend invited me to lunch (along with five others) at the Boat Club. Even though none of us is suffering from major health problems, I was stunned to find that two of them didn't remember that I had invited them to lunch last year. 

I should be grateful that I don't suffer from a major disease. But I suppose I'll have to maintain my walking and do at least eight thousand steps a day. That seems to be the only way to remain healthy, besides of course avoiding fatty foods.

It feels to be good to be 80

Well, finally I've attained the age of 80, something I did not imagine would happen when I was in my 30's or 40's. 

I'm lucky in the sense that some of my relatives expired before they were 70.  I have two male cousins who are older than me but their brother who is three years my junior looks much older than I do, as he suffers from arthritis and Parkinsons. So far, I have remained in comparatively good health, even though I used to cough and sneeze as recently as two years back. Then I stopped eating those things to which I was allergic, I gave up tea and stopped eating between meals, as well as avoiding restaurant food, and I believe this is what made me stop coughing and sneezing. Of course I do have back pain, sometimes it's very painful, but I exercise regularly to reduce the pain. I've always had tremendous will power, so I was not influenced by those who tried hard to turn me into a smoker. There were some who even advised me to drink the forbidden stuff, but I successfully resisted such people.

One thing I'm worried about is lack of adequate sleep. I lie in bed for more than an hour before I'm able to sleep. Fortunately I learned to meditate and relax my body long ago, so it's not so bad being awake until one o'clock in the night.

Life after retirement

 Even though I'm only partially retired (I spend three hours daily at work), most of my time now is spent at home. Fortunately I've always been physically and mentally active, so for me retirement is not the hell it is for most men of my age.

I grew up in a house where everyone spent a lot of time reading. My father was an avid reader who spent a fortune on books, magazines and newspapers. Even after TV came to Pakistan, he never gave up reading. We used to have four morning English newspapers, two Gujarati morning papers, three English and one Gujarati evening papers. Besides all this, he used to subscribe to Readers Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Time and Newsweek, plus two weekly Indian English newspapers. He would also buy novels (Edgar Wallace, Erle Stanley Gardner, Leslie Charteris, Rex Stout and others). Reading all that stuff resulted in my being the most knowledgeable boy in school. 

Now that I am almost retired, my reading habit has proved very useful. I read at least one book every week (some are books written a hundred years ago, others are recent), and I watch movies and dramas on Netflix. I also spend a lot of time walking.

Yesterday at the annual family Eid dinner, I saw how incredibly ignorant my nephews and nieces are. I wanted to tell them to read as much as possible, but they are addicted to video clips sent by their friends through Whattsapp, so their general knowledge is virtually nil. I don't see how they can survive into their old age without succumbing to dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

 

When you're old, you can't help thinking about death

When I was not so old (around 65), I thought I would never be pre-occupied by thoughts of death (as some of my older contemporaries were). I would regard them as crackpots, especially those who were worried that they hadn't been as religious as they should have been. They were the ones who suddenly grew long beards and spent most of their time in mosques with other men who also thought they hadn't been religious and should make up for it in their old age.

Now that I'm nearing 80, I too find myself thinking about when I will die and whether it'll be painful. I'm not worried that I didn't pray as much as I should have, but about why I haven't accomplished as much as others who've led useful lives. I regret not having helped people so much and not having made many friends. I'm glad that I didn't start smoking or drinking and led a morally good life (I know some billionaire Memons regard me as very stupid for not collecting more wealth whenever I had the opportunity to steal).

And whenever I hear about some relative or acquaintance dying, I wonder when my turn will come. This month a distant female relative of mine has been found to have cancer, and not a week goes by without the club informing me of the death of another senior member. Every time this happens, I think about when I'll kick the bucket.

So what should I do? If I had enough wealth, I'd help those in need. But I can't do more than donate the obligatory two and a half percent zakat every year. I had plenty of opportunity to take bribes and commissions when I was in charge of construction projects, but I refrained. One of my students (himself a very corrupt man) was amazed that I didn't want to accumulate illicit wealth even though it was within my grasp. My priorities were different, and I was right, as an uncle of mine told me a few months before his death. He had lost most of his illicitly earned money and regretted that he didn't have the wisdom to be content with what he had. He was one of those who had thought I was a fool for being honest.

 

50 years of marriage and I'm still alive!

I didn't really expect to live so long when I got married fifty years ago. I also thought my marriage wouldn't last more than five years as I was bad-tempered and not easy to get along with. But here I am, not as healthy as I used to be but still in reasonably good shape.

I had a good job at the time. The problem was, I was too impetuous. I used to quarrel regularly with my superiors. They knew I was good at my job, so I would be sent out of town for extended periods even though there were others who could have done the job. But one day, when my first child (a son) was only seventeen days old, they sent me to Lahore for what they said wouldn't be more than a week. But when the Lahore work was done (it took more than a month), they told me to go to Multan (where it took another week). When I returned, I was exhausted and decided to leave the job. 

I started my own contracting business and in the first few years it was tough. I also took up teaching part-time to supplement my income. Then I bought a salt works where I spent thirteen years. In 1991, I entered the printing field where I've spent a good thirty two years. 

I'm 79 now, and the other day I was at the annual club dinner where I met people of my age who are in much worse shape than I am (both physically and mentally). So I suppose I've been lucky. 

What I learned from my recent vacation in England

I've always maintained that the UK is the only country I'd like to migrate to if circumstances force me to leave Pakistan. In fact, if it wasn't for the weather, I'd gladly live there for the rest of my life. 

This was the seventh time I visited UK, and the longest (six weeks). I met many people there, visited a number of towns and gained three kilos (even though I used to walk six thousand steps daily).

The first thing I learned was that if one wants to live there permanently, he should go there before the age of 35. The evening I landed, my bones ached terribly and I had difficulty opening my fists and raising my hands. I cannot bear cold weather, even the mild winters of Karachi make me sick. But due to the pure air of Newcastle and surroundings, I did not suffer from sneezing and coughing.

The next thing I learnt was that most people in the UK are law abiding (although it won't be long before the Muslim population grows so much that the country will be like most third-world nations). Already there are parts in most UK cities where Pakistanis and other Muslims are concentrated and in those places there is a lot of crime. The only beggars I saw were Muslim men and women outside the mosques on Fridays.

The only thing about the trip I didn't like was the long flight and the transit period of three hours at Doha Airport. For some reason, they didn't allow us to board and disembark through ramps, they had a bus which drove the passengers to the aeroplane. I learned later that they do it for all flights originating from and going to Pakistan. But then, I returned from Manchester and the plane was full of Americans, Chinese and Africans, yet they too were made to board the bus,

I'm 79 years old today

I still find it difficult to believe that I'm still alive. In my teens I thought I wouldn't live beyond the age of 40. In fact, during the brief period I studied palmistry (when I was 20), I found "proof" that I would be dead in a few years. It didn't happen and every day when I get up in the morning, I'm grateful to be alive.

Many people I knew in childhood and in school have passed away. Two close cousins died before the age of 70. I used to suffer from breathing problems and blocked nose until ten years ago. So there is no earthly reason why I didn't conk out years ago.

I really don't know why I've successfully completed seventy nine years. Perhaps it's due to the fact that I never took up smoking. I also stayed away from red meat and kept my weight under control (70 kgs). Plus of course I walk more than six thousand steps every day.

This year I'm spending my birthday in England, with my daughter (my youngest child). She's the one I like talking to the most, as (like me) she's read a lot. She persuaded me to travel this year, and I agreed, even though I hate travelling long distances.

So, if anyone were to ask me how I've managed to remain alive despite being "unhealthy" most of my life, I would answer that it's because I've been physically and mentally active throughout my life (besides of course having a healthy diet).

A horrible accident

Sixteen years back, when I had a heart attack and two stents had to be inserted to help me survive, doctors had warned my family members to prevent me from driving. "If he has an accident, he could die", they told my son. Since then, I've had a driver, even though I kept on driving. 

Last Saturday, I and my wife had been invited to a wedding dinner. Although I had stopped going to such events because it meant returning home an hour after midnight (criminals in Karachi being very active nowadays), I decided to go. I let the driver go home because I didn't want him to get tired (he'd been working since seven o'clock in the morning). I felt confident that I'd be able to drive safely. I didn't know that it would be foggy and it would affect my vision.

Just outside my apartment complex, the DHA has placed huge concrete blocks in the middle of the road in a zig zag manner to deter people from driving rashly. If it had been a clear night, I'd have seen the boulders and avoided them. Unfortunately I didn't see the boulders as I was trying to remove the dew on the windscreen. 

It's been five days since the accident (my car was badly damaged), but I still keep thinking about the accident and the noise it made. It has affected me so much that I need pain killers and sleeping pills to survive. 

Of course the fault was mine and mine alone. I should never have taken the decision to drive, but as in the past few months I had driven a couple of times without mishap, I thought I could do it again. We were lucky that we didn't get hurt. In any event, I've decided never to drive at night, even if the weather is fine.

Earthquakes I have experienced

The first time I went through an earthquake was in 1968. I was in bed in a hotel in Swat reading a book when I felt that someone was trying to move my bed. I rushed out of the room and found that many people had already run out of the hotel. Since then I have felt many tremors in Karachi, one on the Indian Republic Day which struck Gujarat (the Indian state where I was born). Since the place was more than a hundred kilometers from Karachi, it must have been a very powerful quake. I remember Musharraf sent a plane with relief goods but it was not accepted by the Indians (Modi was the chief minister of Gujrat at the time). I have also been through mild earthquakes in recent years after moving to my present apartment. 

But the most powerful one was in 1986 (around 5.8 on the Richter scale). I had heard dogs in my salt works making peculiar sounds (not barking, but wailing) and I had sensed that something was wrong. Next day I was in my flat around mid-day when the building started shaking violently (it was a three-storey building and I was on the second floor). I rushed out with my wife and kids, it took us a while to get to the ground floor as the narrow staircase was full of old and young people. I've never been so scared in my life.

I once read that the Chinese were successful in predicting one quake and had got vacated a small town before it was struck. I do not know of any other quakes which they may have predicted. Their method is to have teams monitoring the behavior of animals (like lizards and dogs) who display abnormal behavior a few hours before a quake. 

The leader of a religious party in Pakistan (Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamat-e-Islami) once said that earthquakes occur only in those places where the public engages in what he called "obscenity" (he meant women who are promiscuous or even display too much skin). I asked him (through a newspaper letter) why earthquakes happen under the oceans and even on the moon, which are called moon-quakes. Again, why did so many people die in a huge earthquake in the northern areas of the country where the most religious people in the country happen to live? My late uncle (who was a member of the party) told me that among the dead were some immoral women who had been in a hotel at the time. How did he know they were immoral? Were all the hundreds of dead people also immoral? No answer. But a gym coach I knew explained it this way: "When Allah decides to punish some bad people, a few good ones also die but they go straight to Paradise".  

Why I don't attend Memon wedding dinners

A couple of days back I wrote about even Memons not printing their women's names on wedding cards. I received such a card from a distant relative, a Memon who has never done a day's work in his entire life (because his illiterate father left him a huge fortune). This man has his own views on what real Islam is. A few months back, he started his tirade against what is wrong with our society, and how to improve it by observing the true religion (namely, having long beards and wearing ankle-length trousers, among other things). Since I'm allergic to such people, I did not go to his son's wedding dinner.

The other reason, of course, is that people like him think having dinner before midnight is a heinous sin. I did not want to return home two hours after midnight, particularly during these days when people are mugged every day.

The next time I meet him and if he starts talking about religion, I'll tell him about my own wedding dinner, which was at 8 pm. My friends at the time thought I was joking and didn't believe me when I told them this. A minute before eight, my father announced that dinner was being served. My friends were amazed. They thought I had deliberately arranged an early dinner to avoid going to a shrine in Clifton (in those days, every believer was supposed to go there and beg the dead man buried there to help them become fathers in nine months). One of my friends (now deceased) even told me to pray and ask the saint (Abdullah Shah) to forgive me for this transgression. As it turned out, his own wife sued him for divorce after the birth of their first child (a girl). I should have asked him why the saint didn't help him, but of course I didn't have the heart to do it (due to my upbringing in a missionary school). 

Forty nine years of married life

My wedding took place exactly two years after the Fall of Dhaka, when the country was dismembered due to the intransigence of our generals. Another sad event took place on the same date (December 16) when a hundred and forty four school children were killed by terrorists in 2014. 

In 1973, the year I got married, the price of gold was about Rs. 350 per tola (about 10 grams). Today it is about five hundred times that amount. I've never understood why people think gold will always help them in times of need. Whenever my wife has gone to sell her old jewelry, she has never been offered more than twice or thrice the amount she paid for it. The jeweler invariably offers to exchange the old jewelry for something in a new design, which is why all jewelers in the country are billionaires.

Taxis used to charge half a rupee per mile, goat meat was about Rs. 5 per seer (approximately a kilo) and men earning a thousand rupees a month lived comfortably even if they had three children.

I really didn't expect to live beyond 50 as a couple of doctors had predicted that I'd have a heart attack before that age. One of them died due to heart problem around the age of fifty, while the other died of Covid before he got to seventy.

It has been a long struggle, not only staying alive and healthy, but to survive when my income wasn't sufficient. I used to borrow from relatives when times were tough (when I was in my forties) to feed my family. Most youngsters of today will never know what it means to be poor. But I fear that with the current world wide recession, income levels will surely decrease and most of us will have to tighten our belts. 

I regret giving up teaching!

In Pakistan two of the most difficult professions were always under-paid: teaching and writing. Nowadays teachers (especially tuition teachers) are highly paid. In my apartment block, there is a man who lives in a penthouse on the fifteenth floor (the rent of which is about Rs. 400,000 p.m.). He is so much in demand that aside from his regular job (in a prestigious college), he teaches students who live twenty kilometers away. He even has armed guards when he moves around, so he must be very rich.

Then there is this young chap of 25 or so who teaches maths to children of my relatives and neighbors. He has his own car and dictates the time and day when he can come to teach. He even goes abroad for vacations once or twice a year.

I used to teach in NED Engineering College and would be paid Rs. 25 per lecture. In my spare time, children of neighbors and relatives would come to my house to solve math problems (I did it for free). It was widely believed by Memons that only losers took up teaching.

Members of other communities (particularly Urdu speakers) of course regarded teachers with respect. I remember how a Customs officer changed his attitude when he discovered that I had once been a lecturer in a prestigious institution. Until then, he had treated me like he did all other businessmen, thinking that I was a tax evader. Another time a retired officer in the oil industry was amazed when he was told that I had given his son (my assistant) time off to study for exams, as his son was also a student of mine.

Memons too have taken advantage of the boom in teaching, but instead of becoming lecturers they have opened tuition centers where they employ others to teach. Among them is the son of a distant relative of mine who gave up his job to open a tuition center. Another Memon has spent a fortune for his sons to become partners of Anis Hussain, the man who prepared many students for IBA and other colleges.

Winter badly affects my health

My remote ancestors migrated from Sindh to the Indian state of Gujrat about 500 to 600 years ago. In Sindh, winters are much more severe than in Gujrat. For six centuries my forebears lived in the warmer climate of Gujrat, but then my parents had to flee to Pakistan in 1947. I've lived in Karachi for 75 years out of 78, and from the beginning I couldn't bear the cold of winter months.

Like last year, the cold weather started early. We've already had some rain in the first week of November, and immediately my bones started aching. I can hardly get up in the morning and have to remain standing for two or three minutes before I can walk. An hour later, after breakfast, the pain has reduced substantially.

I asked my dentist what kind of foods he and his family used to eat when they lived in Abbotabad. He said they consumed a lot of beef, dry fruits and butter. Dry fruits are now beyond the reach of people like me, beef and butter I can't have because of my heart problem. I wonder what I should eat. I'll have to risk it, I suppose. I don't think minced meat made of beef or goat meat can do much harm. But then, you never know. Let's hope for the best.

 

It was a beautiful world in the 1950s

It's been a very long time since I visited Jodia Bazaar, the locality where I spent my early year (1947-1956). I want to go there but the place is full of street criminals who wouldn't think twice before shooting you to get your cell phone and wallet.

It was a very different world then, without the modern amenities that we can't live without. I remember the time when my father bought a portable fan. It was imported, probably from England, made of cast iron, and I happened to drop and break it, getting a thrashing from my dad.

There were no telephones. The first time a phone was installed in my father's office, I and my cousins (along with a couple of visiting relatives from India) walked past the office to go to a telephone booth to talk to my father and uncle (his elder brother and partner). My father later asked me, "Why did all of you walk to the booth, when you could easily have come to the office and given the message? I told him "Just to know how it felt to talk on the phone". For many years getting a telephone installed in one's home would take many years.

Ours was the only family in the whole building that had an automobile. It was a large used Morris (1942 model), and cost Rs. 3,000 (a princely amount in those days). The day it was bought, I went to the balcony with my parents to look at it (it was parked in the street below).

Our apartment was on the top floor and very cool. The air was pure and the only smoke was from the wooden stove owned by a woman on the ground floor (wood being much cheaper than coal in those days). There was no gas and the electricity would go off around sunset (I think it was due to the shortage of fuel caused by the Korean war).

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that it was a beautiful world in those days, although by today's standards we were very poor.

How it feels to be 78 years old

I've completed 78 years and I'm still wondering how or why I'm still alive. I've said before how I thought I would die before the age of 40 (due to my weak respiratory system). I spent my teenage years sneezing and coughing most of the time. I had nine nasal sprays, two in my car, another two in my office desk, and the rest in my bedside drawer. Even though the sprays were meant to be used only once in a day, and not more than three days at a stretch, I would spray my nostrils almost every hour to clear my blocked nose. For the past ten years or so, it hasn't been so bad, although I found out recently that the evo-haler I've been using for the past six years could have affected the working of my brain. This could be one reason why I keep forgetting recent events.

I still suffer from various ailments. I've got a very bad pain in the lower back and I have to keep moving a lot in the daytime to reduce the pain. There are days when I wonder why I take all the hypertension, blood thinner, cholesterol reducing and diabetic pills as I may not wake up the next day. As I've said before, medicines nowadays are terribly expensive.

Not only medicines, even vegetables and other eatable prices have increased due to the recent super flood in Sindh. For the next few months life is going to be very difficult.

The past year I didn't produce any published pieces (except on this blog). A few years back the then editor of Dawn called me and said they have to encourage young writers (particularly from rural areas of the country) so I should not send them any letters. I do submit comments on Dawn's website, which are frequently rejected, but occasionally accepted, like the one yesterday in which I supported trade with India to reduce the shortage of onions and tomatoes and other vegetables. 

I plan to continue my tirade against Imran Khan, who daily emits something new. Yesterday he hinted that the new army chief will be someone selected by the present government so he will not ask them about their alleged corruption. The man is proving that he's a certified moron. He doesn't know that it's not the army chief's job to investigate corruption, if it were, Imran Khan himself would have had been asked by the present chief about his own corruption. Unfortunately, his die-hard followers would gladly drink his urine if he asked them.

Old age problems

Yesterday I read an article by a Yasmeen Ali who is originally from Karachi but now lives in Lahore. It was about the common expression "Age is just a number". She concluded that it isn't, and I agree. Old age is full of problems and it's very difficult to grow old gracefully.

Next week I'll complete 78 years (which should surprise most Pakistanis, as life expectancy in the country is still around 60 or 65, depending on where one lives). I regret not exercising regularly, I have begun doing now what I should have done ten years ago. Unfortunately, my mistake has resulted in a very painful back and I have to do calisthenics regularly to reduce the pain. I've also started forgetting many things, perhaps it's due to the heavy medication I consume to keep me alive.

The main reason (and perhaps the only one) for having lived this long is that I never started smoking. When I had two stents inserted into my body twelve years back, the doctor said I had survived was due to not smoking and not eating red meat. Even today, my diet consists mainly of vegetables and chicken meat. 

If any of my descendants want my advice on how to live to a ripe old age (above 70), I would advise him or her to walk and exercise regularly and eat sparingly. My weight today is almost the same as it was fifty years ago. One way to do it is to refrain from eating in restaurants and at wedding dinners. You can't remain slim if you gorge yourself.