"Be grateful for all the benefits you received over the years and count your blessings," he goes on "you then attain an equilibrium and are not focused only on your present condition".

"There is a saying that one's true character is revealed if one can keep marching on when the band stops playing. Older, with less mobility, you suddenly confront a new life. How to live it is the theme of this book.

"A purpose to live for is very important", says the author

"When I was sixty, I was diagnosed with cancer (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and given about four different types of chemotherapy.

"Then I had a seven-year break but, lo and behold, it flared up again. This time I also had gene therapy and chemotherapy was, mercifully, for a brief period. The desire to finish a book I was working on kept me going.

"Today, ten years later my desire to write still occupies my mind and keeps me going.

But, "I think of many others who are not as fortunate and I have a great desire to assist them in meeting the challenges of old age, some of which can be quite unexpected."  

Russi M. Lala started his career in journalism in 1948 at the age of nineteen. In 1959 he became the manager of the first Indian book publishing house in London and in 1964 he founded (with Rajmohan Gandhi) Himmat Weekly, which he edited for a decade. His first book, The Creation of Wealth, now available in a revised edition, was published to critical and commercial acclaim in 1981. This was followed by other books, including Beyond the Last Blue Mountain: A Life of J. R. D. Tata (1992), Celebration of the Cells: Letters from a Cancer Survivor (1999), A Touch of Greatness: Encounters with the Eminent (2001), and For the Love of India: The Life and Times of Jamsetji Tata (2004).

R. M. Lala's books have been translated into other languages, including Japanese. For eighteen years he was director of the Tata’s premier trust, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. He is the co-founder of the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy and was its Chairman from 1993 to 2008.