BY BRIG. KESHAV CHANDRA : Senior citizens everywhere are clamouring, a la Oliver Twist, for more: more pensions, more old age homes, more healthcare facilities, more subsidies and discounts, more freebies, more respect, more ……., more ….., and more….. And, why not? Didn’t we fight for freedom of the country and, after it came, didn’t we nurture and guard that freedom? Didn’t we look after our own parents in their old age? Didn’t we scrimp and save to give our children good education and a reasonable start in life? Didn’t we toil day and night, when in service, in the spirit of Aaraam Hai Haraam, to put our country on the road to development? And, isn’t our India, where it stands today in the World community, solely because of the sacrifices made by us? Didn’t we…? Didn’t we…? Didn’t we…? “Ungrateful country!” “Sanskaar-less children, after all that we did for them!!” “Tch, tch, what has this world come to!!!”
A common enough refrain among elder groups ‘taking the sun’ on park benches in Chandigarh (as, without doubt, elsewhere, too). A jhola wala in a boat-shaped cap (insignia irrelevant) stops by and suggests a dharna. His plan: block traffic, shout slogans and present a list of demands to the Constitutional authority, in full glare of media. A wizened old gent interrupts to say that it is déjà vu all over again, “Didn’t our grandparents and, before that, their grandparents have similar grouses?” Someone else suddenly has a memory recall and starts to narrate the full story of ‘the wooden bowl’ but is overtaken by several others chipping in with ‘factual’ versions from the childhood memories. The consensus that slowly emerges is that there may, nay will, be no takers for precedents or sanskaars. If we want respect and privileges, then we have to be a part of society and not sulking recluses shutting ourselves off from all forms of communication. We must emerge from the proverbial well; widen our horizons; mingle with younger generations; understand their problems; create awareness and give them constructive guidance – unobtrusive, uncritical and unimposing. If we are perceived as net contributors we will be able to COMMAND rather than DEMAND respect.
And, how do we play our ‘contributor’ role? Admittedly not many of us may be as physically fit or mentally robust at 70 or 80 (or 90) as we were at 30 or 40. Fortunately, nobody expects us to be. What society expects from us are sympathy, concern, involvement and commitment based on the reservoir of knowledge, experience and expertise that we possess in diverse fields. This we can do individually within the family and, for resultant benefits to accrue to senior citizens as a group, by working on a larger canvas, through an NGO.
Such an NGO may not have the wherewithal, human or financial, to execute projects on its own. In that cases, it should work jointly with other NGOs. Objections are sometimes raised that a senior citizen NGO must not associate with (or work for) non-senior citizen groups. Such views merely reinforce the very thinking we must most strongly rebut, namely, that senior citizens are an unproductive, self-seeking segment and that scarce resources must not be wasted on them – be it pensions, healthcare research or expenditure on old age homes. We must counter this by creating awareness among younger generations so that they come out to march with us and demand for us. This is possible only if we constantly work and interact with them. Such interaction is especially important with children at pre-school and primary levels for they meet an emotional need defined as grand relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Psychologists are even recommending building children’s homes on the premises of old age homes.
We, in Chandigarh Senior Citizens’ Association, have provided for generation-gap bridging activities in our Constitution (details of such activities included in Report by the Secretary General) and I am glad to say that these projects have paid very rich dividends. None of these projects is at the expense of our work for the older persons and expenditure, if any, is restricted to grants or donations received specifically for that purpose. An intended bonus comes in the spiritual satisfaction that members get out of working for God’s people – the Poor and the Needy.