To grow old or to age- a lesson for everybody

To grow old or to age- a lesson for everybody

When friends meet up, often the talk leads to the fear of growing old. It is more likely than ever, in this era of good healthcare and extended life spans, that women who are in their fifties now

FPJ BureauUpdated: Tuesday, June 04, 2019, 09:04 PM IST
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When friends meet up, often the talk leads to the fear of growing old. It is more likely than ever, in this era of good healthcare and extended life spans, that women who are in their fifties now, will be left alone by the time they are seventy. Husbands may be lost to death or divorce, grown-up children may be scattered, wherever career opportunities take them. For some years, when grandkids are small, granny duty is required, particularly if they are abroad. When they grow up too and move away, many elderly women are left by themselves. At least in India, there is still domestic help available, and at a pinch, relatives and neighbours would rally around in an emergency.

If the women are reasonably healthy and live in a metro city, they form their circle of friends and have some sort of social life — lunches, movies, plays, shopping, travel and so on.

However, at the same time, cities are not quite elder-friendly - like in the old days, there is no joint family to fall back on— and almost an aging person thinks, at some point, of moving to a seniors’ home, or getting together a bunch of like-minded friends and forming their own community. For many, it may remain a dream—never mind all those attractive ads for elder living in picturesque locations.

That’s why, after watching a film called Aunty Sudha Aunty Radha, the mood of the preview audience was mellow and a little hopeful.

Tanuja Chandra wanted to make a documentary on her aunts; when she mentioned to her friend Anupama Mandloi about her search for a producer, she immediately came on board. The crew heard of the project and joined in with great enthusiasm, because this true story can only be called a geriatric fairy tale.

Sudha and Radha are sisters, aged 86 and 93—Tanuja’s ‘buas’ (father’s sisters). They kept inviting her to visit, and when she finally did, she found them leading a charmed life, that many would either envy or want to replicate.

After they retired from their jobs (something in government, it’s not clear what they did), and after their family responsibilities were done with, they set up home in the incredibly pretty town of Lahra in Uttar Pradesh. The house they live in is large but cozy, with a well-tended garden. What is remarkable, is that they have created a mini-village around themselves. They have a retinue of domestic helpers, who are more like family.

They have been given parcels of land around the house, which they farm and presumably sell the produce. So their attachment to the sisters is not as a servant to an employer — they dote on the women and affectionately indulge their every whim.

Their day begins with a woman from the group of helpers coming in early in the morning to make their tea and serve it to them in bed. Tanuja chats and banters with them, finds that one is easy going, the other a bit finicky about everything. They bicker but do not impose their choice on the other. There are long discussions about food, people they know, a peek into their cupboards full of beautiful saris. There is a lot of laughter, and celebration of festivals — a boisterous Holi is captured by Eeshit Narain’s camera.

Both of them move around with the help of walkers, but that does not prevent them from keeping an eye on the property, giving instructions to the gardener or cook, going out shopping to the village market in a rickshaw. The shopkeepers know them and everything is taken to them for their approval. The latest project is to build a fountain in the middle of the courtyard. In just 49 minutes (with some deft editing by Chandan Arora), the autumn of their content lives is portrayed with love and empathy.

Of course, it is understood that it requires a background of some wealth and privilege to live like Aunty Sudha and Aunty Radha, but what is important is that they have chosen independence and gathered a surrogate family around them. So many senior citizens find themselves lonely, redundant or lacking in purpose. These two remarkable women have found a way of banishing these problems. Which is why the film is moving and eye-opening in so many ways.

In this case, the women are sisters, but they could well be cousins or friends; the idea is for women (and men, for that matter) to understand that how they cope with old age is up to them. They can either mope or curse fate (so many films and plays are about old people weeping about being abandoned by their children), or they try to make these years as meaningful, comfortable and happy as they can. A village like Lahra, that is probably not even on any map, can be turned into a paradise in one corner of the earth, by women who decided not to give up. They aged, but did not grow old; there’s a lesson in there for everybody.

-Deepa Gahlot

The writer is a Mumbai based columnist, critic and author.

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