The senior citizens require love, affection and care, which
no money can buy. They want someone to listen to them, someone with whom they
can share their thoughts, someone who can sit with them with a smile on their
face. The immediate family is always busy, the grand children are busy with
their studies and other related activities, the son is hardly having the time
to sit with them as work pressure is always high, relatives and friends
maintain distance due to their age too.
Doctors and nurses are the only regular visitors. The worst comes when
the senior citizen couple becomes single, due to death, they become more lonely
and feel detached from the world. Their heart becomes like a heart of a child looking for a shoulder to
sob on. Food is available to them but not a single loving hand to feed them. The world which they
dominated, now dominates them. These
people start developing a survival guilt
due to such negligent environment created by the younger generation. The few
care sentences they hear from the close ones, have you taken a bath today – not
understanding that due to age their body cannot bear the tap water and take
your medicines in time. They are forced to see Television channels which others
like to watch. They receive the newspaper at the end of the day to read. They
are deprived of a neat and clean bed, at home,
as once in a while it gets dirty
without their intention. They are
subjected to scolding with no fault of theirs, which they bravely accept with a
smile. They are not invited to greet guests in the house. All the comfort which
they shared as parents with their family are not available to them. No matter
how starve they are to have a dish of their choice they are made to compromise
what the family chooses. They long to go out for a drive with the family followed by dinner, but same remains a dream.
They smile and long to laugh with the family who are too busy with their own
week end plans. Even the domestic help takes them as a last priority. Their
clothing are washed separately for fear of an infection. It is sad to see that
the one who ruled the family is now caged with out a chain to one corner of the
house. Children are adviced to keep distance from them because of their old age
diseases. The younger generation has ample of cosmetics on their dressing table
but none care to give them a bottle of coconut hair oil leave alone a shampoo bottle. All their life time earning, provident fund
have been converted to FDs and it becomes a pain for the family to spend even
the interest earning of same on their treatment. If the senior citizen is
living in a joint family, the commotion remains “who’s responsibility “?
If one looks deep inside their eyes, one can observe the
tears being on hold , like a Dam holds the back water. As parents when they
had to buy a car, consent of the young family members were taken, today none consult
them. The younger generation thinks they know much more of the world but if one
opens them for a discussion their experience would be asthoning . They are more
learned than us but sadly are treated as old books of the house. With time we
are forgetting the taste of Pickles which our Granny’s made , with all the money we cannot buy that taste
which had more of love and less of oil.
The senior citizens are an asset to the house, all one has to do is treat
them, with love, care and
affection. Their blessings come from the
heart and they say what they mean. We must teach our children to respect our
senior citizens as today or tomorrow all have to reach this stage. What we sow
will reap, the way we treat our seniors the same will be our fate from our
children. It does not hurt to pass a
smile to them whenever, wherever we see them, irrespective to our relation with
them.
Sincerely yours,
Rakesh Bhatia,
