The eyelids droop as
the wrinkled face concentrate on the bride surrounded by the impeccably made-up
friends and cousins. She must have been quite a beauty in her youth, this old
lady, I wonder. She turns her face towards me and seeing a patient and eager
look on my face, she starts talking about her life. The sons who stay outside
the country, the daughter who is so busy, the home which was torn apart to
erect the apartment complex where she owns three flats now, the nuisance called
“mobile” that is destroying the youth these days – it was a long narrative and
I was all ears. Yes, I do have an interest in people in general, and I do not
mind being on the receiving end of a monologue. Our tête-à-tête was rudely
interrupted by a sudden uproar from the bride’s coterie, and my old lady
frowned. “They must have put the vermillion on her forehead without giving
uruli (a series of devotional sounds that women produce during some religious
ceremonies like puja, marriage, etc. by frequently touching the rounded upper
and lower lips by the tip of the tongue). That is a bad omen.” she remarked
with a dismal expression. Another woman, well past her youth, started singing
biyanaam (a type of melodious song sung by women on the day of marriage) and
the ambience suddenly became nostalgic and emotional. A few young women looked
at the old faces with disdain and impatience. And it was then that I, a
middle-aged soul, realized the reality of the elderly in our society who are rapidly
feeling sidelined in today’s youth-obsessed society.
Last night, on my way
home after a tiring session at the gym, I met the old couple who live in a flat
on the floor below mine. The man is around eighty, robust and smiling. The
woman is quiet, with eyes that look perennially sad. I greeted Uncle and he
seemed lost. I asked him if all was well. He said, “Our son recently celebrated
our grandson’s first birthday. They stay in Dubai you know. His in-laws and
friends were there. We got to know about the celebrations from photographs in
Facebook.” While there might be dozens of reasons for this party being
celebrated without the knowledge of Uncle, the fact remains that he was hurt
for not being kept in the loop by his son.
Internet has made me an
autodidact, and I have learnt many new words; one such word is ‘ageism’. Coined
in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, the
word implies “prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age”.
Ageism is here, and ageism has found a strong foothold in the till-now
close-knit Indian society.
Despite embracing
modern technology such as using Skype, joining Facebook and putting posts
on Twitter, the seniors around us are fast becoming outcasts. We are rapidly
becoming inclined to treat the senior members of our family and society with
derision and lack of respect. This attitude from the younger lot forces the
older generation to retreat from society. The efforts of the older generation
to stay in touch, their attempts to share their feelings of loneliness and
their “fossilized concepts and opinions” are often thwarted with ridicule and
indifference. As a result, they experience of feeling of being "invisible”.
They are increasingly being sidelined to the extent of being treated as
non-existent entities. Their opinion is never solicited while taking any
decision, nothing on the television and
radio is made keeping their interests in mind and they are often written off as ‘obsolete’ and ‘ well past their prime’ by
the society.
Many of the elders
around us often talk about illnesses and the aches that cripple them. While
some have gastritis, the others have knee-pain. The headaches are frequent, the
breaths are laboured, the bones are brittle, the heart is weak and the memory
is failing. Some take naps during the day, and then they cannot sleep at night.
The constant reminders about these conditions are usually beyond the perception
of the robust young men and women who are at the receiving end of these
monologues.
But then I think of
myself. At forty, I have started the journey ‘oldwards’. Maybe that is the
reason why these words flow for this write –up.
I think of the wrinkled
cheeks, rheumy eyes, thinning hairlines and the tiring descriptions about
ailments. These people were once powerful. They created the comforts that the
generation next take for granted. They went through all trouble that we gave
them at our infancy. Most of the nights when we were sick, they kept awake to
take care of us. They toiled hard to put us in good schools, sometimes standing
in queues for hours to collect admission forms, and paid for our education. They
searched for knick-knacks for hours after office so that we could submit the
school projects on time. They paid for our parties and our first bicycles. They
took care of our accommodation, food, clothes, books, extra-curricular skills
and all other expenditure for years, sometimes sacrificing their own needs and
comforts. They bought us cricket bats, ping-pong balls, teddy bears, computers,
video games and all other entertainment items that we demanded. They cleaned
our school shoes, washed our uniforms and tidied up our rooms. They did not
complain when every year we required new dresses because we grew taller;
instead, they decided to postpone buying their own dresses so that we got ours
on time.
I wonder why we have
this apathy towards our elders. Is it because
we have made more money and have become richer than them now? Or is it that we
magnify our troubles so much that we find their existence inconsequential? I
wonder if we fear mammoth care costs for the elderly, for if we spend too much
on their medicines and investigations we may not be able to buy the duplex that
we liked so much at the swanky neighbourhood of the city.
Wearing a selfish pair
of spectacles, I think of myself and wonder where I will be when my body or
mind will begin to deceive me. I wonder if I live in such an advanced
scientific society where some nerdy scientist will soon manufacture robots that
will take care of me when I will be unable to take a single step on my own!
