Staying Alive

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1141193.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articlelist/-2128669051.cms

Times of India: EDITORIAL
BRIEF CASE:
Staying Alive
By MAXWELL PEREIRA

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2005
They say with advancement and development in society, life expectancy is getting longer. Even so, in this day and age it is rare to come across a centenarian, and rarer still is a super-centenarian who has crossed 110. Unlike the time when I grew up, there were many among us Mangaloreans who could then boast of more than one member in the family who had crossed a hundred. Documented in history are around 800 super-centenarians, doubtless a fraction of the number who have really lived, but the majority of claims to this age do not normally have sufficient documentary support to be regarded as valid. Three different types of documentation are used to verify age — birth or baptismal certificate, marriage certificate and census data.
Even though there may have been many more who lived beyond, it is widely believed that Jeanne-Louise Calment was the oldest human being having lived till the age of 122 years and 164 days and died in 1997. The oldest living man recognised by the Guinness Book is Shigechiyo Izumi who lived between 1865 to 1986. And the oldest human alive today is Hendrikie van Andel of Netherlands who was born on June 29, 1890. A social visit to Sterling, Scotland for my son Prashanth has assumed special significance on learning that his great-grand-aunt Lucy D' Abreu lives there. She just happens to be the oldest living human being today in the UK, who turned 113 on May 24. Of ethnic Indian origin and a Mangalorean born in India in 1892, we know of her in the community as the widow of Abundius. And Prashanth's maternal grandmother Joyce who lives in Morpeth, Northumberland is Lucy's niece, her late mother Josephine being Lucy's first cousin. Lucy's age has been authenticated by the Guinness Book of World Records. There are only 11 other people around the world older to her, as per the records maintained by the Gerontology Research Group, affiliated with the UCLA School of Medicine, of the oldest people alive.
The writer is a retired police officer.