37% of Senior Citizens are living alone !!!!

Since a month we have all seen many kinds of paadayatra :) Today morning i happen to read an article in the news  paper. It was about Senior Citizens taking a paadayatra in some city and observing a protest day in some other city. I gave it a thought and the result: off course my views on it:)

And then i began to flip the pages further and i found a very nice article “Cousin who, uncle who? we are a  nuclear family”

The connection between these two news item must be obvious by now:) Number of nuclear families are having a direct influence on the plight of the senior citizens.

I want to quote a dialogue from Munna Bhai MBBS here. Sanjay Dutt enters his room in the medical college hostel and he says “ भाई यह कैसा कमरा है... छल्लू होते ही ख़तम होगय !!! !!!” . For most of today’s young generation this quote holds good. The family begins and ends with the nuclear family :)

Let me go back how i used to spend the vacations during school days for 2 months in April, May and a mini vacation in October for Dasara. Summer vacation - grand parents place was the perfect destination. A village called Hedathale near Nanjangud (which is 45 kms from Mysore). My cousins, too, came from different places and we used to spend the time together. We played all kind of funny games, went around the village, ate the delicious food prepared by grand mother. Some times our pranks used to land us in trouble and my grand father used to get complaints from his neighbours “Your grand kids did this did that”. I remember in one such instance we were tied to the pillar in the hall for 3 hours :) Me and my cousin Ramu had this habit of feeding the cows in excess whenever our grand father went to sleep. He would later notice that the stock feed was getting emptied quickly. He would then come and take us to task :) My grand father was an exceptional Chess player. Defeating him in Chess was one hell of a task. The annual fairs were a real treat. Grand mother telling us stories of her times and sometimes scary stories would make our sweet sleep terrible :) Directly or indirectly we learnt lot of lessons during such visits. My grand father is 86 years old now and grand mother 76. They will be coming to my place this month end and am doubly excited to have them :)

Now coming to the present generation. How many of them will have such an opportunity. How many of them visit relatives place and stay for even a day. In short the families have become nuclear. The hectic city life style that provides little time for family, the advent of countless television channels and computers have all indirectly contributed to the growth of nuclear families.

Most of the young generation work in city living parents alone to manage on their own. Many go abroad as well. And their parents tell with pride that their son is in UK, daughter married to a guy in U.S but internally trust me friends they know what an ideal situation for them would have been. They would have toiled hard to make you stand up on your own. They would have dreamt of playing with their grand son, grand daughter. And suddenly they find themselves alone. A phone call a day and fortnight visit if the son or daughter is working nearby is what happens. There are genuine cases where parents don’t want to relocate to cities but given a choice most of them would love to stay with their son.

This has lead to the emergence of Old age homes and the day won’t be far when after attaining 60 years we will begin a new life by getting admitted to a school. School ??? Ya there will be queues to get into the best of old age homes :)

So friends what’s the solution? Ensure you take your parents to wherever you go to work.  Even if you work abroad you can take them. Spending few thousands on expenses for your dad or mom shouldn’t be a problem. Devote time for them. In case if they prefer to stay in their native do visit them once a week. Take them around. Go to a movie. Have fun with them.

Let us not leave them alone. They are our parents after all and are the reason for our existence.

P.S: Girls who are on the verge of marrying or those who have married, i have a request for you– Don’t insist on staying separate from your in-laws after marriage. :) Believe me their presence will be more than useful to you as well. Instead of some maid taking care of your kid they will take of their grand son or grand daughter with utmost care. :)