REAL OLD AGE

 

“ Tired with all these, for restful death I cry”

                                                                                                                    William Shakespeare.

              The man would have penned these lines for more illustrious reasons, but I conceive it in a way which has been haunting me for quite some time now. The perspective is from an urban south Indian mindset and many may not take it the same way.

              I grew up in a south Indian Joint family where my Grand Father was the decision maker, a whole family of 15 to 18 odd people revolved around him. At that young age, old age for me was authority, control and decision making. With time and economics joint families withered away and when I was in my teens, Old age for me was when you retire maybe at 60 years of age.

              It took a lot many years to understand that 60 years of age is not real old age. Parents in there 60’s are still in their active productive phase of life. Many Indian parents support their children in raising the latter’s kids. Many People in their 60’s take up all the household responsibilities, some even go to work and make their living, thanks to growth of medicine and living standards. But the real Dragon is still in hiding.

              This may not be the case in all households but majority goes this way. Even after the prescribed retirement age, ‘yet to be old’ parents do whatever possible for the family they have cherished. India with a vast growing population of Emigrants, many of these parents become unpaid baby sitters at mostly ice cold or sun burnt lands. They feel pride in helping their children who have permanently moved to new found lands of pasture, without realizing that the worst is yet to come.

              Here, only the urban Indian middle class is considered for discussion. The poor have a separate tale, and require a separate narrative.

              With Time those who were happily 60 and considered themselves to be old start growing ‘real’ old in their mid-70 and 80’s. Few skip a chance to experience this but many do make it. Things they have been doing for 10 years or more since retirement would become hard to do anymore. Grand children, whom they saw as incarnations of their own children, and gave all the pampering which they couldn’t give or afford to give to their own children, would now find more solace in a mobile phone than the company of their ‘real’ old grandparents. Things which they would have never bothered all these years will start enforcing their importance, like even flushing their bowels in the morning would feel like a mission accomplished. Medicines would have doubled in quantity, if affordability is a crisis, then acquiring them takes to hell; and if dosage skips memory every morning, then that’s an all new issue.

              Age restricts body to a certain place, but mind flutters with wings of an eagle. It glides through all the good memories of past and through all the worthy and good things they have contributed to family and society. But who cares? Life and world have travelled far ahead. But mind never heeds the body, few get into depression and the rest pass on.

              If this be the case of ‘real’ old people, their children in the age of late 40’s or early 50’s would look to have grown much older considering their life style and work culture. They have a younger generation to mentor and support, and an aging generation to care and support. Many take on to both the task efficiently. But others struggle, and at times unknowingly regress from their responsibility to care and support.

The Emigrant community helplessly tries to outsource this care and support, many senior care hubs have emerged. Advertisements showing tennis playing Grandpas, amused and loudly laughing Grandmas as models, glorify the business. But again those portrayed here are retired senior citizens and not the ‘real’ old parents who may need palliative care, whose hands shiver due to Parkinson’s or those who don’t realize where they are at that moment. Care for this kind of old age needs more study and support as it drains both the cared, and the caring, financially and emotionally.

Indian middle class since economic reforms of late 1980’s have always had an American dream. The Land of opportunities has influenced south of India more. If cultural influence of the capitalist country is to take lead, where living with parents is considered as not good for society, then caring for ‘real’ old parents may get more complicated in a couple of decades.

              It’s not that people started aging suddenly, as for many of the ‘real’ aged parents, taking care of their parents some 30 or 40 years ago would not have been so challenging. Most of them had 4 to 6 siblings, of them at least one would have retired early, and he or she will be responsible for all needs of the ailing parent. The urban siblings would visit once a while, take stock, console and come back. It’s not that way now, with one or no sibling, and reasons need not be elaborated.

              Hence in the new generation of care givers the problems faced are sensitive, complex, emotional and financial. How to negotiate this phase of life?! It cannot be articulated with few thumb rules or bullet points. Every case differs based on demographical, medical, financial and social reasons.

              Whatever be the condition it’s the duty of every children to make life less painful emotionally and physically for their ‘real’ old parents, so that they cherish their loved ones and embrace their end peacefully. It’s our turn tomorrow for the same.

“Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone”

                                                     

Hareesh Aravindakshan