Nobody liked changes, especially the older generation; it hit them hard and square. They have a notion of things, place, situation and life and don’t want to see that notion derided or banished. Neither would I. But with many of us living outside our native place, many parents are forced to follow along their children and live outside the world that they had spent their life.
It must be hard for them to make so many adjustments and changes so late in their life. It is understandable that most of them are totally handicapped when they moved to a territory unknown to them. We, the children, have to understand and take care of their psychological and mental need as this is the time when they started thinking that they have no purpose and are useless around the new places.
In places like Delhi, there are number of aged population from our community who had come to live with their children. And it is understandable most of them don’t like the place at all. Both my parents still choose to live back home even though all of us, their children, are living outside.
My parents knew what life is like in Delhi as they have visited us more than once. Though my mother, unlike my father, never complained about life in Delhi, I can feel from her look and the little word she spoke that she dreaded the time when she would be left with no choices but to live with us.
When my mother came to visit us recently, I took her around the various departmental stores in Dwarka. I piteously looked at her as she stands there flummoxed by the varieties of toothpastes, and struggling to choose one. Then, she gasped and an awkward grin spread through her face as she saw the ordinary white Colgate that was available back home. As she tightly grasped the toothpaste, she said beneath her breath that she always preferred those.
I looked at my mother –lost; lost for word, lost for what to do next, afraid to take the next step. Late at night when we were alone, she complained bitterly how she had become invalid around here. I told her not to be silly, what else can I say?
It breaks my heart to take away my parents to this foreign land where they will be eternal aliens, incapable of moving around on their own and relying on their busy children for even the smallest of needs which I may not always be able to take care of. The last thing I want to do to my parent is to clip-off their wings and take away their self-worth.
While my Mother was in Delhi, she once told me this is not the world as she knew it. It’s an unfamiliar territory for her. She would definitely miss our little village where she walked up to the shop keeper and asked for a tooth-paste and was given one without being asked the type, variety or flavour.
I once asked my Parents to come and live with us in Delhi. My Father joked if I would be willing to baby-sit both of them at all time. I am not a good babysitter. Rather I am the one whom everyone around me baby-sitted. They, especially my mother, would tell me when to eat, when to sleep and when to visit relatives and whom to visit.
I don’t need to be reminded of these small details, but that’s what she chooses to do. But now, the babies here would be my parents, and they knew better than me that hitting one’s head against the wall will hurt us and not the wall. And here, their emotional needs will be more than their physical, and those needs are available only at home -back home, where they are free.
On the other hand it breaks my heart to think that my aged parents do their own laundry, fetch water and do all sort of household work by themselves. But the bottom line for me is that I would not take away their independence as long as they wish to have, and even if they choose to come and live with us, I would promise them that I would make sure that I would not part them from their loved ones if they choose to, as and when they die because that is one of their biggest fear.
And that definitely would be a sad ending…
It must be hard for them to make so many adjustments and changes so late in their life. It is understandable that most of them are totally handicapped when they moved to a territory unknown to them. We, the children, have to understand and take care of their psychological and mental need as this is the time when they started thinking that they have no purpose and are useless around the new places.
In places like Delhi, there are number of aged population from our community who had come to live with their children. And it is understandable most of them don’t like the place at all. Both my parents still choose to live back home even though all of us, their children, are living outside.
My parents knew what life is like in Delhi as they have visited us more than once. Though my mother, unlike my father, never complained about life in Delhi, I can feel from her look and the little word she spoke that she dreaded the time when she would be left with no choices but to live with us.
When my mother came to visit us recently, I took her around the various departmental stores in Dwarka. I piteously looked at her as she stands there flummoxed by the varieties of toothpastes, and struggling to choose one. Then, she gasped and an awkward grin spread through her face as she saw the ordinary white Colgate that was available back home. As she tightly grasped the toothpaste, she said beneath her breath that she always preferred those.
I looked at my mother –lost; lost for word, lost for what to do next, afraid to take the next step. Late at night when we were alone, she complained bitterly how she had become invalid around here. I told her not to be silly, what else can I say?
It breaks my heart to take away my parents to this foreign land where they will be eternal aliens, incapable of moving around on their own and relying on their busy children for even the smallest of needs which I may not always be able to take care of. The last thing I want to do to my parent is to clip-off their wings and take away their self-worth.
While my Mother was in Delhi, she once told me this is not the world as she knew it. It’s an unfamiliar territory for her. She would definitely miss our little village where she walked up to the shop keeper and asked for a tooth-paste and was given one without being asked the type, variety or flavour.
I once asked my Parents to come and live with us in Delhi. My Father joked if I would be willing to baby-sit both of them at all time. I am not a good babysitter. Rather I am the one whom everyone around me baby-sitted. They, especially my mother, would tell me when to eat, when to sleep and when to visit relatives and whom to visit.
I don’t need to be reminded of these small details, but that’s what she chooses to do. But now, the babies here would be my parents, and they knew better than me that hitting one’s head against the wall will hurt us and not the wall. And here, their emotional needs will be more than their physical, and those needs are available only at home -back home, where they are free.
On the other hand it breaks my heart to think that my aged parents do their own laundry, fetch water and do all sort of household work by themselves. But the bottom line for me is that I would not take away their independence as long as they wish to have, and even if they choose to come and live with us, I would promise them that I would make sure that I would not part them from their loved ones if they choose to, as and when they die because that is one of their biggest fear.
And that definitely would be a sad ending…
"October 1 is International Day of Older Persons (as recognized by the UN), it is also world Vegetarian Day"
