“Thank you beta” he said as I gingerly handed him his medicines. No less than five tablets, all shapes, sizes and colors. “I am proud of my children” he said, turning his face around to look out of the window. There was not much to look out at except the back wall of the second wing of the hospital. As the day runs out the grayish wall turns all black melting into the bosom of the night. Tears well up in my eyes, as those old helpless hands, pierced with needles make a faint attempt seeking comfort in my arm. Suddenly the sound of the heart monitor becomes a monotonous beep, as his hand falls. In an instant he is no more. And as he takes his last breath all he has to say is “I am waiting for my son, I know he will come.” But no one came. A week later all that the old age home received was Rs.10, 000 draft and a letter saying “My father should be cremated in the most honorable and religious manner.”
Do you know when you are old? When people on the streets don’t look at you. They avoid meeting your eye and let their glance slide off the side of your head. Those people could be your own children. Old age has become a curse. Old parents too like other things have become disposable. Use them and throw them. Youngsters today feel no qualms in dumping people who are inconvenient in their lives. Yes! This is the same Indian parivaars, full of sanskars that our GEC serials show everyday and millions lap up with tears in their eyes.
Isn’t it sad that parents in our country still live only for their children by whom in the twilight of their lives they are disregarded and ignored? Isn’t it a curse for Indian parents to be so wired as to focus all their attention and emotions on their children with result that when that hub is gone most of them spend their last years in emotional turmoil and sheer mental agony.
Gone are those days when the grand patriarch and matriarch would reign secure in their domains with toddlers at their knees. Today they are marginalized, neglected and ill- treated. Today children have every good reason to casually shrug off their responsibilities towards their parents and venture out. Job offers are better, prospects of making good living brighter and well may be once in a while the old parents do get a chance to visit their children abroad where there are luxurious cars, swimming pools but no time for the ‘guest parents’. The poor parents are just nannies to their growing grand children. Till the time their visas expires and they return lonely and heart broken to their empty shells.
Unfortunately a silent revolution has occurred in the last 100 years- unseen, unknown and yet so close, that is increase in life expectancy leading to sharp rise in the number of old people. India which is today proud to have the largest number of young people in the world is poised to become the country with the second largest number of old people. It’s really a matter of shame that in our country 90% of old people don’t have social security at the age of 60.
The alarm bells are ringing loud and clear. If we do not heed these warning signals and change the scenario, if we do not start caring for our aged and enfeebled parents and grandparents then the day is not far when we shall have stepped into their shoes and shall be lamenting like the pathetic unwanted aged Lear of Shakespeare:
Pray do not mock me
I am a very foolish old man
Four score and upward
Not an hour more or less
And to deal plainly
I fear I am not in my perfect mind
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