Ageing and its representation in popular culture are becoming an increasingly gendered experience. The fact that it is always looked a from a woman’s perspective limits our already sketchy understanding of ageing and does nothing to help. To switch the viewpoint, we ask four men about their experiences of growing older, and the reward and vulnerabilities it evokes, to question if age, after all, is just a number.

Credits: Photographed by Bikramjit Bose and Appurva Shah (for Kabir Bedi)
Styled by Shirin Salwan
Story by Ritupriya Basu

Pankaj Tripathi

43 years

Jacket by Amaare

Was there a specific movie that made you take a step back and look back on your life?

There was this scene in the last sequence in Bareilly Ki Barfi, where Bitti, the daughter of my character in the film is about to get engaged, and she looks towards me for a nod of approval. At that moment in my head, I suddenly fast-forwarded my life to when I’ll probably be 55, and when my now 14-year-old daughter will get married. It left me wondering about the 55-year-old me, the complexities, vulnerabilities and relationships I will have then.

As you’ve grown older, have you noticed a shift in the kind of stories you want to tell as an actor?

To be honest, I was struggling when I started out, so I’d pick up any project that came my way. But lately, I’ve been gravitating towards scripts or stories with a social message. I’m interested to contribute to scripts that challenge our society to think and live in better ways.

Boman Irani

59 years

Is there something about ageing that’s not usually addressed in conversations around the topic?

Most men don’t like to admit the fact that you get slower with time. In all aspects of physicality, movements become slower and activities begin to take longer. Mentally, it is said that you become slower, but in my case, it’s the other way around. I make a concerted effort to be mentally agile and
intrepid.

What about your approach to acting has changed over time?

When I started out, I wanted to be an actor who stood out and shone. By the time I became an actor, at 44, that didn’t matter to me anymore. It was always the story and the feeling that the audience went home with that became paramount. The maturity I gleaned over the years helped me realise that everything doesn’t need to revolve around a character; he could just be a cog in a well-told story, and still make his presence known.

What’s the one thing you’ve learnt over the years that you
now live by?

When you move on from school or college and become a professional, your need to keep learning takes a backseat so you can make a living, and share your knowledge. I’ve realised that the moment you stop learning, your growth curve stalls. You need to constantly student-ify yourself, and uncover new things and ideas to feed your mind. If you drive yourself to keep learning, age – which at the end of the day is just a number – can’t ever touch you.

Naseeruddin Shah

69 years

Credits: Shirt by Mitesh Lodha ; Trousers by Amaare

They say that age is just a number. Is it?

It depends on how you approach it. The numbers do add up, and the larger the number becomes, the tougher it gets to carry the burdens that come with if you consider it a burden that is. They say you’re as handsome as you feel; I think you’re as old as you feel. Other than the fact that my
the body sometimes refuses to obey me, in my mind, I still
feel 20.

Do you think your craft has evolved over the years?

Definitely. As you grow older, your understanding of life increases, and so does your understanding of acting. You learn to take care of your body, voice and mind; I learnt how to use my voice only when I was 40. Acting, as a craft takes time and experience.

What about ageing liberates you?

The most liberating thing about growing older is finding your equations in life with people. I think, sometime around 40, you start finding those relationships. It makes the older years much easier and kinder. The other great thing about ageing is inching closer to the feeling that you’ve done as much as you could with your life, that is of utmost importance to me.

One trait of your younger self that you still wish you had?

I wish I still had the brashness from when I was a
twenty-year-old. I was a very bold, overconfident young man; somewhere along the way, especially with my start in cinema with the serious movies, I lost that. I wish I was as talkative as my younger self, and a little less of this quiet, serious man that I’ve become.

What’s the biggest hazard of ageing?

The most significant danger of getting older is confusing age with wisdom. Ageing doesn’t necessarily bring wisdom. Some people never grow up, they just grow old.

Kabir Bedi

73 years

Credits: Make-up and Hair by Mitesh Rajani, at feat.cast and Kin Vanity, at Runway Lifestyle (for Kabir Bedi)
Assisted by Ankita Agrawal

What’s the most challenging part about growing older?

The effort you need to put in to stay on top of it. Ageing is something you need to fight, with energy, vitamins, nutrition and positivity. The combat against the processes of ageing is constant, but it’s a highly winnable one. As
Clint Eastwood once said, ‘Don’t let the old man in.’

Is there a character trait from your younger years that has stayed with you till today?

I’ve always had an appetite for challenges. Although I was a young man who just wanted a decent job to make a decent living, I ended up becoming a model, at a time when no one from a respectable family chose to be in the industry. A few years ago, I participated in an Italian television show called Celebrity Survival, where celebrities were taken on an island and deprived of food. I was there with twelve people, who were half my age and twice as fit, but I came second. A constant thirst for challenges is a constant part of who I am, whether young or old.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learnt along the way?

You have to seize every opportunity, and above all, learn to recognise it. Sometimes an opportunity could be hidden in a conversation heard at a party, something someone tells you at a bus stop or a line you read in a magazine. If you’re ready to recognise the opportunity, you tap into
possibilities that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

At 73, would you say you’re creatively satisfied?

It’s very important to have a creative dissatisfaction, at all times in your life. The dissatisfaction itself is the engine that drives you to push for more in life, and never settle. The minute you say you’re creatively satisfied, it closes the door on your true potential.