SITUATION ANALYSIS OF THE ELDERLY IN HARYANA Is it an offense to suggest to a gathering of the old people (aged between 60-75 years) to engage themselves in some creative pursuits or get busy with some innovative ideas? Recently, when I put forward this suggestion, I received negative feedback and was told to keep shut. After consistent observation of the aged I found that most of them living with their wards around my residence in a modern urban conglomeration gather at around 10 am and play cards or do gossiping on issues related to various negative stories appearing the morning papers, puff a Hookah by turn and talk about the politics. These people retired as teachers, babus from the banks as well as from the State and Central Govt. Many of them draw good amount of pensions. They disband at around 1.30 pm and go home to take tea or meals and sleep until 4 pm when their urge brings them back on the same venue to take up to gossiping and puffing a Hookah. The gathering to which I suggested useful engagement is comprised of an agricultural land holder, a retired college teacher and retired babus or middle ranking officers. One of the comments as feedback was a counter question in the sense that they did not know exactly what I meant as ‘useful engagement’ and also that they could not define the meaning of ‘work’ after retirement. I was puzzled and admiring their innocence and thought that how incapable was our elderly population, comprised mainly of retired public servants belonging to the middle class, in thinking innovative and creative ways and means to keep them usefully engaged after active service. It occurs to my mind that this large segment that constitutes almost 8 per cent of our population can make contributions in many areas that need their wisdom but for lack of skills that they could have developed during the active phase of their life. I have seen many older people doing photography, reading books, writing on many topics and contributing to the media or on the Radio, doing gardening, looking after for a few hours the offices of their wards in absentia, teaching and playing with their little grandsons and daughters in improving their handwriting and refining grammatical skills, doing paintings or even learning to operate a lap top or a PC so that they could tweet, make posts on the Face Book or just find finding useful information through surfing the internet. A few years ago one of my neighbors who retired as Principal Scientist from a premier institute of ICAR got established with great efforts a Senior Citizens Club (SCC) in the neighborhood. The State Govt. might have invested about Rs.90 lakhs on erection and furnishing of the Club House. Obviously it was not meant for playing cards, smoking bidis and Hookas or discussing useless issues. My educated friend was elected as its President but when he enforced discipline and order of etiquette, he was literally humiliated and forced out of the coveted position. The next humiliation for this upright and educated fellow came from the RWA who ganged up against him and snatched the position of the President as he was too much enthusiastic, wanted the officialdom to remain on their toes in matters that required that consistent attention to see that all facilities and infrastructure functioned properly and that there should be no politics in management of the RWA. It occurred previous to his efforts for establishing the SCC. The situation is pretty worse in comparison to the tasks that elderly people do in west European countries, the US and the Japan etc. Sometimes it makes me think that the illiterate elderly people are far better as human being than the semi-literates of the groups I am talking about. They lead a simple life and never do things that were once prohibited by good customs such as playing cards or discussing politics, which are a bane to our society. I things these people are wasting both their bodies and life. However, I would like these people to read a document entitled: ‘Situation Analysis of the Elderly in India (June 2011)’ produced by the Central Statistics Office, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Govt of India in the wake of the Census of India, 2011.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 04:31:02 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015