Maybe we should lighten up....

Whenever my son, living in Mumbai, was asked why he was going to Delhi, his reply was "to see my A. Pees." A.P. stood for aged parents. Now that he is himself what in modern parlance is described a senior citizen, and his mother has passed away, he answers the same question, saying "to see old pop".
With the passing of generations, younger people’s attitude towards the old has changed. When I was a young man, we used to describe aged people as oldies, or worse sattreah bahattreah (feeble-minded in his 70s and 72s). Now persons in their 70s are not considered old new attitudes and a sizeable vocabulary has been evolved to describe them. For one their way to show respect to the aged is to keep a respectful distance from them.
So we have old people’s homes, a good distance from homes they once lived in and ruled over. There is much to be said in favour of old people’s homes. The few I have visited in England and the USA are as luxurious as any five star hotel; separate cottages with modern amenities like world radio and TV, spacious dining and sitting rooms where you can meet and chat with others in your own age groups; light tasty food and wines, billiards rooms, card tables for bridge, rummy or latience. There are spacious lawns and flower beds. Above all, there are nurses and doctors in attendance round the clock. They cost a packet. Inmates are happy blowing up their life’s savings to live out their last days in comfort because they are aware they can’t take anything with them when they go. Their offspring don’t grudge pitching in because they are relieved of the responsibility of looking after their parents and can get on with their own lives. The notion of a family gathered round the bed of a dying patriarch or matriarch is as dead as a dodo.
However, much I approve of old people’s homes, I resent being described as a gerry (for geriatric), old boomer, fuddy duddy, gaffer or old fogey (for god father) codger, coot, geezer, etc. Some new coinages like dinosaur, fossil, cotton top, cranky, crumbly are downright offensive. Eighty years ago Chesterton wrote in his essay Prudery of Slang: "There was a time when it was customary to call a father a father.... Now, it appears to be considered a mark of advanced intelligence to call our father a bean or a scream. It is obvious to me that calling the old gentleman "father" is facing the facts of nature. It is also obvious that calling him a "bean" is merely weaving a graceful fairytale to cover the facts of nature."
Call us oldies or what you will, but bear in mind that just as a saas bhi kabhi bahu thhi (the mother-in-law was once a bride) you too will one day become an old person and slang words like codger, geyser or fuddy-duddy can be hurtful even to an oldie who is hard of hearing.