By D N Singh
Old Age should not be a burden on one someone and no one even loves to walk on the shoulders of others at the dusk of their lives. What a man and woman long at that age, mainly after 70, a self-induced solitude and some seamless environ where they sit out on the balcony of a house breathing the fresh air blowing in from the South.
An absolute freedom from the nearby madding crowd, honking vehicles and all that cacophony. But the screaming kids and an aroma of a dish from the kitchen.
However, contrary to the advancement of science and technology, the drastic drop in human values have set in to make a majority of us mechanical as well.
With all eased with their professional works, with a nucleus family outside the parental circle have abandoned the older people, alone and remorseful within themselves.
Beyond the tea-up
When Sakuntala(name changed), 71, in Niladrivihar, in her kitchen was pouring tea from the tea-maker’, the mobile rang…Hello, she said to someone…’we are very well..Papa also..’ and but I could see the tea from the container was falling out of the containers and on the kitchen platform instead, as she struggled to balance the cell-phone within her audio range…’ when are you people coming..’there was a silence from other end perhaps.
.Then I came to know she has an extreme retinal disorder. And the call was from her son in California with his family and Sakuntala and her husband destined to be at mercy of a house-maid visiting twice in day. That is with what they claim, job accomplished !
Who would take care of them? A make-shift domestic help who tries to sweep many of her duties under the dusty carpets.
There comes to the mind of an institution Founded by Dr Achyut Samant, Kalinga Institute Of Social Sciences. An all the wide umbrella sheltering about thirty thousand children from the tribal and other downtrodden community getting all that they require to grow up with their talents unlocked and heading towards self-reliance. Everything free of cost.
Dr Samanta is by now is busy with many such things relatable to social service, sports and education but, he can be expected with all seriousness to set up a all-in-one ‘Home’ where lonely couples or old individuals can be lent a life of fag-end solace in life. There are many and a list can be long.
An Ideal Home
It is only has to be a Home for such people where committed people can render their services not as employees but as stake-holders, when the feeling of joy comes from what you do to those people and their smiles(inmates) writ on the faces exude million dollar mirth.
The said Home need to be a real home. Not the ones like day-care hostels where the fees determine the services, let love alone.
That would be a real wonder under the sun if taken with little feeling, and yet another in the list of a yeoman tag for Dr Samanta.
