LIFE - COLORES INFINITUM (39)
Some of them have chosen to be there.
Some of them were placed there. Some of them were forced to be there.
Some of them tried to go back to,
but they were not allowed to.
One of them was this lady, of age
of a grandmother, in her 70’s.
When one of the older grandmas
asked her how she was doing, she said smiling: I am fine. Just have this blood
pressure that is varying these days. And these silly joints need some
pain-killers. And the legs and hands behave somewhat erratically now most of
the time. Otherwise I am doing fine.
While saying this, the smile on
her face was impeccable.
She spoke so easily as if it was
her natural state of mind, reacting on difficulties of life in a way so as to find
a way of living and that too, positively, even if surviving a basically
frustrating atmosphere daily.
This old-age home is a paid
facility for the senior citizens, who can pay, and has people from different
walks of life.
Almost of them have sons and
daughters but they are not staying with them. Reasons vary – some of the
reasons we can perceive.
Some of them have children
settled elsewhere and the parents found they were unable to migrate. Many of
them have children settled elsewhere who decided to abandon their parents. Some
of them have lost their children. Very few of them never had any child.
By feeling the atmosphere of this
old-age home, though paid, it cannot said to be a conducing environment. The
seniors living there are a scattered lot. Some socialize while others keep up
to them. The old-age home, though charges them, fails to give them a decent
daily-life.
Expecting the emotional support,
something they need the most, is not to be expected.
They need emotional support with
attachment and not the occasional connect with the outside world that comes in
the form of public relations exercises of non-governmental organizations and
socialites who scavenge for such events and visit places like this old-age home
on days like the Independence Day or Diwali or any other festival to fulfill
the need for their personal aggrandizement or for photo-op sessions.
And in this atmosphere, such a
jovial and natural response to the life’s tougher moments was inspiring.
The smile that so beautifully reflected
had the in-built answer on how to deal with the pain.
Take it head-on. Take it
positively. Don’t run away from the pain. Try to live with it in order to win
over it.
Running away only exacerbates the
misery because you fail to see if there could be a possible way out.
A natural smile while in pain had
this message for all of us, the smile of the grandma was telling me.
It was, yet again, reaffirming my
faith in this lesson that I had learnt through my visits to such places.
Thanks Grandma.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
