No Aging in India

Lawrence Cohen is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Program in Critical Studies of Medicine, Science, and the Body at the University of California, Berkeley.

"This is a powerful, provocative book, rich with meaning. Lawrence Cohen weaves together challenging, revealing theory with vivid ethnographic images—of white-clad stooped women mingling with hungry dogs on the narrow lanes of Varanasi (Benaras); of a 'hot-minded' mother-in-law yelling out her window for someone to come save her, thus inculpating a 'Bad Family' and uncaring daughter-in- law; of an eager anthropologist trying to find senile old people with whom to do research. By the end the reader gains a new awareness of an important dimension of social and political life in India, as well as of what medical anthropology, gerontology, and ethnographic writing can be."

• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE GROUND OF THE ARGUMENT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION, TRANSLATION, AND TRANSLITERATIONINTRODUCTION The Mad Old Woman of the Millennium The Age of Alzheimer's The View from the River Dulari 1. ORIENTATIONS The ,Zagreb Tamasha Whats Wrong with This Picture? The Better Brain Tropical Softening Embodying Probate A Medical Explanation The Senile Body An Anthropological Picaresque Of VaranasiWorld Wide Web 2. ALZHEIMER'S HELLNo Aging in America! Leading Scientists Reveal Alzheimer's Subjectivity, and the the Old West The Geriatric Paradox Oublier Postmodern Aging A Witch's Curse The Senile Climacteric Alzheimer's Family Nuns and Doctors 3. KNOWLEDGE, PRACTICE, AND THE BAD FAMILY On Gerontological Objects The 'Aging in India" Series Internationalist Science The "Golden Isles" Gerontology as Cultural Critique BP Checks:The Volunteer Agency Free Radical Exchange:The Geriatric Clinic Into the Woods:The Retirement Ashram Mothers versus Aunties: The Old Age Home Aitasaa Pralapa MEMORY BANKS The Embodiment of Anxiety The Promise of Rasayana The Marketing of Memory Memory and Capital Forgetting as a Path to Truth Meri Lata Mahan THE ANGER OF THE RISHISHot Brains Sixtyishness and Seventy-twoness Oedipus in India Counting the Days and HoursOld Women at the Polls The Phenomenology of the Voice The Familial Body The Dying Space Taking Voices Seriously The Philosophers Mother 6. THE MALADJUSTMENT OF THE BOURGEOISIE Civility and Contest Balance and Adjustment Senility and Madness Loneliness and Menopause Balance and Cartesian Possibility The Dementia Clinic The Way to the Indies, to the Fountain of Jouth 7. CHAPATI BODIES Nagwa by Its Residents Weakness as Structure Muslims and Other Saints Generation and Weakness Revisited Jhandu and the Sound of DyingThe Position of Repose A Child Is Being Lifted 8. DOG LADIES AND THE BERIYA BABA Dogs and Old Women Old Women and Madwomen Madwomen and Witches Dogs and Old Men Old Men and Babas Babas and the State The Age of the Anthropologist 9. THE BODY IN TIME My Grandmother's LettersNo One Here Cares about Alzheimer's Lost at the Fair A Last Few Trips up the River NOTES GLOSSARY REFERENCES INDEX