As I find it a little more difficult to get out of bed each succeeding autumn morning, my mind (what’s left of it, that is) inevitably wanders to thoughts of ageing. The process is very gradual and kind of sneaks up on you: the cells stop multiplying but continue dividing, not unlike the BJP; the telomeres stop communicating with each other, à la Mr Gyanesh Kumar and his colleagues; the joints protest loudly like Mr Kejriwal at any sudden move; the memory starts playing tricks, as it frequently does with Mr Rahul Gandhi on the stump; and one begins to speak like Shashi Tharoor — in words that no one understands, certainly not my sons, nephews and nieces, weaned on the two-syllable patois of Twitter and Instagram.

So slow is this process, however — like being murdered by a four-toed sloth — that one is not even aware of it.

And then one day — WHAM! — it suddenly hits you full on the geezer. It can happen in different ways: getting up in the morning feeling half-dead and having to check the obituary columns to determine whether one is still alive or dead; that alarming ECG report when you take out a new health insurance policy; or the moment when your son is blessed — is that the right word these days? — with his second child or third divorce.

It can even happen as it did to Groucho Marx. You are standing, grieving, at the graveside of your batchmate, all alone because everyone else has left, when a chap sidles up to you and whispers, "Not........

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