At Fifty: Sandwich Generation

A few months ago, I turned fifty.

When I was young, fifty sounded old. I imagined a fifty-year-old man as someone who had figured life out.

Now I am fifty, and I smile at that thought. I don't feel old. I don't feel young either.

I feel somewhere in the middle.

We came from a different world

I spent my early childhood in a village near Deoria.

Until around fifth grade, there was no electricity at home. No fan. No television. No internet. No smartphone.

I remember studying under a Peepal tree.

We never felt deprived. We simply didn't know another life.

Then life took me from Deoria to Varanasi, Allahabad, Delhi and finally Dehradun. I travelled across India and even to Europe.

The boy who once studied under a Peepal tree now lives in a world of smartphones, the internet and AI.

Sometimes I find that incredible. But that is our generation.

We remember both worlds.

We became the generation in the middle

Our parents came from a time of fewer choices and greater sacrifice.

If Babuji said something, we listened. If Maa advised us, we respected it. Love was not always spoken. It was shown through responsibility.

Today, those same parents are growing older.

They may need our time, our help, or simply our presence.

And at the same time, our children are growing up and becoming independent.

They have their own dreams, opinions and pressures.

Sometimes I hear them speak and think, “We never spoke to our parents like this.”

But their world is different.

They face pressures we never experienced, just as they have opportunities we never had.

So we are learning to let them make their own choices while quietly reminding them:

“Whenever you need us, we are here.”

And somewhere in between is us

This is the part we often forget.

For years, we focused on building everything—career, family, home, financial security and our children's future.

We looked after our parents. We raised our children.

And somewhere in between, we often forgot to ask:

What about me?

At fifty, I think it is okay to ask that question. Not because our responsibilities are over.

But because our life matters too.

We should still travel, explore, learn, laugh, make time for friendships and enjoy the simple moments we kept postponing.

When I look back

I still see that boy under the Peepal tree.

He had no idea how far life would take him.

He couldn't imagine Delhi, Dehradun or Europe. He certainly couldn't imagine AI.

He simply kept moving forward.

Maybe that is what our generation has always done.

We moved from scarcity to opportunity, from letters to smartphones, from being someone's children to becoming parents ourselves.

And now we stand between two generations. Our parents gave us our roots.

Our children are growing their wings.

And we are the ones standing in the middle.

That is the quiet struggle of the sandwich generation. Pressed from both sides.

Carrying more than we sometimes admit. And somehow, still standing.

Maybe that is what fifty really means.