No country for old men

Hey guys, today's topic is a little touchy and emotional because I am making a direct charge at everyone that we are not respectful towards the older citizen of our country and treat them as a responsibility that we are happy not to have. With India having 65% of its population less than the age of 30; the young blood and the impatience to surge ahead is making us insensitive towards the needs of the older people and in some cases we are blatantly blaming them for slowing us down or weighing down our flights. It makes me wonder, is growing old so bad that everyone treats you only as a liability. When the body functioning is slowing down and reactions not as quick, cold apathy from the younger generation makes it that much worse for the older people.


I was travelling on New York City's local transport bus from Times Square (42nd & 8th) to Central Park (60th & 8th). That travel of 18 blocks is ridden with 12 traffic junctions, several crossings and total chaos of NYC traffic. Yet, the driver of the bus was taking every stop, handling driving and ticketing all by himself and having a smile on his face and a "Hi" on his lips for every person boarding the bus. The gesture that impressed me was when he took the stop of 55th street. There was one old lady on a wheel chair at the bus stop and the bus was almost full. The driver pulled over to the curb and lowered the ramp. He walked down and helped the old lady up the ramp and fastened her wheel chair to the buckles provided in the bus. Then, he took money from her and provided her the ticket and once he was satisfied that she was comfortable, he went back to his seat and got the bus back to the driving lane. What struck me even more was that no one in the bus protested that delay of 5-7 mins on a working day. They felt this was natural courtesy towards senior citizens and must be provided even at the cost of the other passengers' time. As I got off at my stop, I had new found respect for New York City for their sensitivity in the wake of mad rush towards their destinations. I asked myself are we busier than NYC, which is called business capital of the world? Then why cant I imagine simple courteous behaviour by any service provider in India, leave alone showing extra patience in handling senior citizens. How many of us remember the government offices and the officers for their polite and courteous behaviour; How many of us know an approachable police department; How many of us are treated well at a bank counter waiting to get some cash from our savings accounts. The answer to all these questions will beg to ask another major question, namely, if we do not have patience in handling regular customers, can we claim to have the patience to handle senior citizens who are slow, not by choice but by age. Do we not owe a happy and secure retirement life to the people who have paid their dues to the society.


Try and imagine the hostile environment in which our senior citizens live, trust me, we would not be excited to live long enough to undergo that humiliation. Imagine your income is reduced to the interest portion of your erstwhile savings and investments. You have gained a lot in wisdom over the years but no one wants to learn anything from you. To others, you are nothing but "a spent force", trying to show off your importance by advising everyone around. Even the children in whom you invested your entire youth and major chunk of your money look at you as nothing more than an added responsibility. You cannot move out freely because the traffic is too fast paced for you and the traffic junctions are not age appropriate or user friendly for you. You have to depend on someone to help you cross small roads or drive you to the nearest bank. All of a sudden you feel helpless and the best way for you is to avoid going outside and stay indoors. Life seems so unfair. People in the line for tickets are not sensitive to your inability to stand in long queues, people in the bus cause a ruckus because you take that extra minute to get on or off the bus. In short everyone makes you realise that you are in their way and in one way or the other say, "either get catch up or move aside". Then you sit and wonder, why the hell did I spend most of my life working and earning if in the end, I cant even live my retirement life peacefully and in a dignified way.


Today, most of our buildings, places of worship, transport facilities are not built to cater to the needs of senior citizens and physically disabled. We have so conveniently ignored a major chunk of our population for a simple reason that they have no representative voice. Even our octogenarian politicians cant think outside of the comforts of their offices and bullet proof cars. Our physically challenged population and senior citizens have suffered long enough and I feel its time we set things right. I humbly submit, if we do not move now, maybe our grandparents and parents bear the brunt in the present... but we have nothing to look forward to after another 30 years except a life of dependence. We all, cherish our freedom and its the best feeling anyone can ever experience. Lets not take it away from a large portion of our society just because we are incapable of thinking beyond our needs or to spare an extra minute to accommodate them.

Think about it...



So long..