When we talk about Indian culture and values, there is something special that make us stand alone from the rest of the world and believe me, it makes us all Indians proud.
Here I am talking about our beautiful traditional culture of respecting our elders. Yes this respect, along with love and deep attachment is the core value of our Indian society. This is a land where we touch our elders feet to seek their blessings. We as a kid has always been taught this from our early childhood. Our bond with our elders (especially parents) is always special. As a child, when we grow up, our parents take care of us. They fulfill our needs, & fill our lives with joy and happiness, no matter how much they struggle to give us most comfortable life. And later we grow up and our parents and elders are old we take care of them and pay them back what they did for us in their entire life. It looks like such an amazing cycle of life.
So doesn’t it look like a nice fairytale where it all starts with love and ends with love. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes life can be harsh and reality is non-acceptable. There are exceptions that literally breaks my heart.
So, If I have to ask, do all our parents and elders get the same exact love and respect in their old age which they immensely poured on us their whole life? The answer is no. There are many people who suffer a lot in the old age. They are disrespected, not taken care of and are denied by their children. There are incidents where the children are competent enough to take care of parents but they still deny.
Here I want to list few points which I observed meeting & talking to people living in an Old Age Home. These points indicate the reasons that lead to abuses happened to them and they are forced to live in an old age home.
- A well educated and working professional daughter brought her mother to the ashram and told that I’ll be back in a week as I have to move to other town for office work & there’s nobody to take care of my mom. But even after the week the daughter never came back. Somehow the ashram team contacted the daughter but she refused to take her mother back as she doesn’t want to take her responsibility.
- This is a case where the old man needed extra care. This person is suffering from life threatening disease. He only knows that he was left by his son in a govt. hospital and never came back.
- There I found a woman who was a widow. Earlier she was having a great life with her both sons living together. But after demise of her husband, both of her sons had a dispute over property where the property was forcefully taken from her and she was thrown out of the house.
These are just the few cases which I can quote, but every person living there, had their own sad story.
Now let me tell you, why I went there. I didn’t give them any charity grants. I didn’t went to make a documentary on their old age struggle or should directly say family abuse. I went there to celebrate my birthday along with them. It was one of the most memorable moment of my life. The cake cutting and little party made them very happy. I wish I could do something for them but I have my own constraints. I am still a young man early in business. I could only have a feeling that I have to take care of my parents no matter what. I am working hard for my mission and my parents are my supporting and moral pillars. I wish every son/daughter must visit old age homes.
My message to the readers – please please take care of your parents. Be respectful, courteous and loving. Sometimes even living together, providing food, shelter and medicines may not be enough. The love, concern and emotions must be from deep inside the heart.
Thank You