Remember W.B Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium"? It refers to this fab line, "this is no country for the aged". The title of our blog today plays with it a little to convey the malaise of the twenty first century.
The demographic data across the world say that many countries are aging fast. Actually, India is not far behind, despite the so-called demographic dividend. That is tragic due to multiple reasons.
First and foremost, India now absolutely lacks the respect it had for the elders. Let it be the father of the family or the teachers, earlier nobody would fail in using the honorifics while referring to them. Now they are supposed to be friends, and hence been demoted to singularities in multiple ways!
True, respect never depends on honorifics or mere age. Yet respect is very much due, too. May be, it is the fragmentation of the joint family or the excessive need for individual 'space', may be, most all people are least concerned about others. "Bagban", let us remember on the Day of the Aged that falls on October 1, is no longer mere Bollywood balderdash. It IS very much a reality.
No wonder, the father who was the living ATM till the mid-twenties of the kid becomes a bother when the old man turns sixty. I saw a cute video and read a brief article. Both of them dealt with the young man's irritation with the fact that the now forgetful parent repeatedly asks the same question or wants to hold the son's firm and strong hand, activities the son himself loved as a boy some eons ago, it appears to the man, now a robust young man, and hence frustrated with the wobbly old father.
There is another angle to the whole issue, and it deals with the dirty monies, stupid! Well, given the huge informal sector in our country, just ten per cent of the senior citizen category enjoy a pension. Even the big companies do not really accord any regular pension. There is no other social security/safety net to fall back upon.
Much worse is the situation of the farmers. Gen next is hardly interested in farming. The erstwhile family division leading to multiple small farms creates nothing but huge problems, neck-deep at that. Costs incurred never match the produce-generated lack of profit. The debt informally incurred keeps on growing, like the destructive cancer cells. The broken dreams, like the crevices in a land parched due to draught, h(a)unt the oldies left behind in deserted villages!
The condition of the widows, outnumbering hugely the widowers, is truly tragic. Many of them learn ugly realities of life at such an advanced age. The silly t.v serials add fuel to fire, and they are subtly but viciously ill-treated. Hence the title of the blog.
Well, ageism is indeed stupid. Everyone is going to grow old, and the realities would be much worse then. Time we start making this century amenable for the old.
Pratima@Where the elders are not ill treated/in to that land of true freedom, let this century awake!
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