N. Raghuraman's column: Stay immersed in art, it will slow down your aging

Do you remember the days of Grandpa and Grandpa? Where did they go every evening — to a temple, to a school or to a community cultural meeting? Our grandmothers often used to say in the kitchen, 'I don't know what is there in those places where you don't stay home even for 15 minutes after returning from a day's work. I don't know about others, but most of the elders of that era in our chawl were definitely engaged in some cultural activity. Later, my father became like that. They used to hold meetings on Monday at the South Indian Association, which runs the 'Saraswati Vidyalaya' in Nagpur. This is the school I attended and about 90% of the children of those 150 households spread over three units studied there. Most of the people in those houses were associated with some temple, whose meeting was held on Tuesday or Thursday. There were cultural programs on Saturdays and Sundays. For example, Carnatic music concerts, itinerant troupe dramas. Sometimes the children's 'Arangetram', in which he used to give a public dance performance for the first time, or a saint from South India would come and give religious discourses on topics like Ramayana, Lord Shiva, his son Lord Kartikeya or Durga Maa for 15 days or a month. Now, let me tell you something different from this topic. Most of the men in my family and in the area where I spent my childhood – who kept themselves active in cultural activities – lived to be more than 90 years old, or at least well past 80. While his wives passed away earlier. At that time, none of us knew that it could have anything to do with spending time in art and culture. But I remembered this anecdote this Wednesday, when I read a study by University College London that engaging in cultural activity once a week can slow down aging for at least a year. Research says that today's cultural activities include reading, listening to music concerts, going to art galleries and theaters, painting, playing instruments, watching art documentaries and going to museums or exhibitions. Actually, I watched more cultural events with my grandparents as a child than in my adult life. My grandfather never stopped going to the temple in the morning and evening. It was from them that I got into the habit of listening to concerts and sermons. Even today, I am a life member of many 'Sabhas' like the Powai Fine Arts Society and the Shanmukhananda Sabha. Watching live performances is a delight for me. Since I am a performer myself, I learn from the body language, word-choice and sense of humor of the actors. Live performances teach me more than cinema. On May 12, my daughter visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York and could not see more than three floors of a five-story building for the entire day. Sitting in Mumbai, he showed me those floors on a video call. As a result, today I can talk about modern art for five minutes. Such connections save me from having to think about my endless to-do list like 'Sisyphus'. Whether it's watching a football or a cricket match in the stadium, I love to go out and connect with something that is bigger than me and that I can't do alone. Peeking into another world and understanding my own possibilities thrills me. The trick is that while modern research claims that engaging in cultural activities increases a few years of life, perhaps our elders knew in advance that it certainly makes life more meaningful.