SUMA VARUGHESE says that elders in the Indian society are being increasingly neglected and are very vulnerable.
India has always been a nation that respected and venerated elders. Unfortunately with the increasing influence of the West and the busy pace of life today, we have become more and more indifferent to their welfare. Can we sensitise ourselves to one of the most vulnerable sections of society. The benefit, I hasten to say, will be ours! I have written down three points to get there.
- Remember you are going to be old yourself some day. We forget some of the most important things in life. That we are going to get old; that one day, we are going to die. When the yakshi asked Yudhisthara what was the most surprising thing on earth, he replied that it was the fact that death exists all around us and yet none of us think we are going to die. Similarly, none of us thinks we are going to become old. It is as if oldness exists in a parallel universe and will not touch us. It is this amnesia that causes us often to be indifferent or even callous about the welfare of the seniors. When we remember that we too will one day have difficulty walking, seeing, hearing, chewing; or be weakened by illness and in need of help, or become financially vulnerable, I think we will more readily empathise with the problems of the old.
It is important to take off the veil of invulnerability that we cloak ourselves with when young and admit our human frailty. No matter how young, healthy, wealthy and smart we are today, our human trajectory will eventually lead us to the shadow lands of old age. When we admit this to ourselves then whatever we do for seniors will not arise out of patronage, or condescension, but rather from an active empathy and understanding that we too may need another’s support tomorrow.
- The second thing we need to do is to value our seniors. We live in a culture that idolises youth and in consequence disparages old age. The loss is entirely ours. As someone knocking on the doors of old age myself, I can testify that I find myself infinitely more wise, capable, deep, kind and loving than I was as a youngster. Youth went in a fog of confusion and ignorance. I understood nothing about life and consequently was very poor at living it. It was only when I hit the mid-30s that life began to yield some of its mysteries. I began to understand it, to understand myself, to know the purpose of life, to get priorities right and so on.
- With every year, I have become better and that is probably true for most of us. If youth has energy, old age has perspective. As you grow older, your vista is broader and deeper. You know that there is more to life than just standing first in class or becoming CEO at 30. We know what is important – relationships, integrity, health and happiness. Moreover, seniors have the advantage of experience. They truly have been there, done that, whether it is buying a house, getting married, having a baby or running a business. We need to respect this deeply for it is not available in any school or college. Seniors can give us the benefit of their lived wisdom, but for that we need to be close to them. And that is easy because most seniors are lovely people.
They are usually less quick to judge or write off people. Living has taught them that everyone has their story for being who or what they are and kindness wins over. Almost everyone of us has had a grandparent we loved. Someone who believed in us, had time for us and who loved us unconditionally. How easy it is to love them. And how enriching. Let us open our arms out to them for they have so much to give us.
- And thirdly let us take care of them. In the Indian tradition, we are told that no matter how much we do for our parents, we cannot possibly equalize the debt we owe them. It is only as we grow into being parents that we realise just how much we invest in our children. How much love, how much time, how much care, how much thought, how much pain.
Perhaps we can never repay that debt but we can try. For our own sake we need to. In Indian tradition we have another concept: karma. Any movement towards spiritual evolution entails voiding our karma to the greatest extent possible. And since the karma we owe to our parents is probably one of the biggest we will incur, we must get cracking on it. Moreover the same law of karma tells us that as we sow, so we reap. If we want to be looked after and cherished in our old age, let us earn the good karma to do so.
You are probably familiar with this story, but I shall go ahead and narrate it anyway because everyone loves a story!
An old gentleman lived with his son, daughter-in-law and grandson. As he grew older, he quite often spilled soup on his clothes, or even broke a dish or two. His unsteady hands sometimes spilled over the glass of water. His son and his wife upbraided him for it constantly. Eventually they decided to serve him in an old tin plate.. Eventually, the old man died and soon after, the daughter-in-law decided to dispense with the tin plate. But her son stopped her. “I will need it to serve you and Dad when you get old,” he said innocently.
What the child saw practised is what he picked up, so we need to be aware. Let us be there for our parents when they need us. The rewards we get in terms of joy and satisfaction are huge.
My mother lived with me for the last 20 years of her life and they were some of the happiest days of my life. About two-and-a-half years before her death, she had a stroke and was paralysed. It was a difficult time, but my sister and I tended to her devotedly. And honestly, despite the difficulties of the situation, I look back at that time as a happy one. Best of all, I have since felt released in many ways to live my life and I feel sure it is because I have voided my karma with my mother to the extent possible.
