A Couple of months ago I picked up a copy of Erica Jong's bestselling Fear of Fifty and settled down to while away the tedious six-hour flight from New York to Seattle. I untied the laces of new Reebok sneakers, unzipped my windcheater and wrapped myself up in the standard-issue airline blanket, and wondered if Ms Jong's fears were anything like my own. After all, the dreaded age loomed not too far off in the future.

Here in the land where youth is worshipped, I had discovered a surprisingly matter-of-fact attitude to ageing among the men and women I had met. Single or married, divorced or not, with or without a significant other, my contemporaries in America did not seem particularly afraid of being 50 or thereabouts. Indeed, most of them exuded an air of wellbeing and a glad-to-be-alive feeling which was most infectious.

Back home, I reflected, I would be wrapped in a respectable starched sari, my hair coiffeured, with the bread-man and the postman referring to me as `Aunty', and the gleam in a young man's eyes would turn out to be just the sun catching his spectacles.

Here, at least three fairly pleasant looking strangers had scanned me with interest and I had had a date with a 35-year-old theatre assistant in a Barnes and Noble coffee shop to discuss the meaning of life.

In America, I had been warned, it was not done to ask personal questions which are taken for granted in India. No one wants to be grilled on his or her marital status, sexual proclivities, income earned, automobile repair bills or other such trivia. Americans seem to take one at face value. And it is up to you to put a value on that face.

I'm afraid I lost interest in Ms Jong's rambling because I was far too busy enjoying myself. In America, I seemed to walk faster, breathe better, and feel healthier than I had ever done at home. I prayed that the new energy would not evaporate once I landed in Sahar Airport.

What, I wondered, is the secret of these people? The obvious answer appeared to be a fair deal of hard work. Not just at their jobs but also at home. Vacuuming, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, taking the garbage out ... these chores are not relegated to a menial class. They are all integrated with other pursuits, more acceptable to us.

The cliche that in America, people work hard and play hard, is generally true. It really is a land of opportunity for those who are willing to get off their butts. In the process, there is not much time for dwelling on whether you are 15 or 50.

Home again, I have slipped into my bad old ways. I walk slower and meander about my tasks. I look in the mirror and cannot decide if I look as old as I feel. Perhaps I do. My energy comes in bursts and have an alarming tendency to sleep in the afternoons. Ms Jong's books gathers dust in a catchall bowl.

The boy who came to fix my cordless phone called me Aunty. I look placidly about my lovely home and garden and thank the powers that be for my three domestic helpers. My neighbour calls to me over the fence and invites me to have a cup of coffee. I know this is going to mean a two-hour tete-a-tete. But I shout, "Sure thing, be with you in a minute."

It occurs to me that I belong to the generation which was titillated by Erica Jong's earlier book, Fear of Flying. Oddly enough, the only words I remember from that volume concerns a certain activity which she qualified by the freshly-minted adverb `zipless'.

Erica Jong's phrase went on to become one of the defining terms of a whole generation. Yet a once-read fragment of G. K. Chesterton's verse is etched in my memory forever.. `The pale leaf turns and withers / The green leaf turns to gold / We that have found it good to be young / Shall find it good to be old.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.