Everything
is on sale is a common observation these days. The bizarre has become routine
and even emotive needs are not left untouched.
Relations
are scaled up and down after calculations of their material worth. Brothers and
sisters who share common roof become so distant that they do not communicate
even in years. The material comparison spoils and poisons the innocent love.
In
matters of love, the financial quotient has effectively killed the emotional
quotient of attachment. Commitment is a word that generates a sort of
repulsion. The rush to define and manipulate the word as per the liking makes
it almost phobic to the puritan senses.
Yes,
the bizarre has become so common. And I came across something today that
extended this humiliating trend. An article in the Hindustan Times (March 3,
2013) introduced me to yet another monetized realm of relations and their
emotive needs – some so-called elder-care specialists.
I
have been visiting the old-age homes. It’s over two years now but I never came
across this term or this bunch who trade emotions with a society-segment (our
elderly) most bereft of them. After reading the article, I won’t say I was
shocked, yes, but I felt low again.
I
could never have imagined that there existed a money-making machine by
exploiting the emotional needs of the elderly people.
Okay,
to make the slate clear, the article says there are professional eldercare
agencies providing services of trained care specialists by charging a
professional consultancy fee. Delhi
is the biggest market and the companionship cost (yes they define the
time-spent with the client, the elderly, as companionship) varies between Rs.
11,000 to Rs. 25,000 based on the client as informed by the article.
What
rubbish!
Where
is the society heading? Okay, I am not a social worker or a puritan human being
but I can say this is outrageous.
The
most significant emotive requirements of an old-age are attention and an
attachment evolved through understanding. One needs to be more of a patient participative
listener than a studious fellow who has done an assignment to communicate with
and respond to an elderly person.
Can
a governess replace a mother when there is a mother? How then someone who is
being paid to talk and spend time can become a source of emotional fulfillment?
Given
the cost involved, such silly services can only cater to the well-to-do
clientele so are still restricted. The case studies given in the article are
from the affluent class.
There
are millions of elderly people devoid of their basic needs and ignored by their
families. At the same time, they are financially broken after spending their
lives on their sons and daughters. Their pain is so much that it breaks the
heart while talking to them. Any paid companionship cannot work in such cases.
Why
can’t, we, as a society, come forward to offer emotional aid to them? We are a
young nation it is said. Why can’t we undo the wrong done by our elders like
fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers in ignoring their elders?
Why
someone, irrespective of the social class, needs to pay for something that
should have been his by the natural right?
Why
some of us need to be paid to give the true first members of our society, our grandpas
and grandmas, their due?