Senile saddle

Shiekh Tabish

Everybody is in rush at the moment. Some are working hard, so that they can build their dream house. Some want to buy a car of their dreams. And some want to send their children in the best schools. Still some want to get the best present for their wives. And then, some want to have the best grooms in the world for their daughters.

Everybody wants something. Children want good marks in their exams. And it seems, freewheeling of dreams have no pause.

But amid rolling of wants and wishes, something remains untouched! The other day, I saw young and restless making mockery of an elder. As if they had no regard and reverence left for his existence. That giggle, that smirk, and that flash of self airs: pathetic! Perhaps, they were living in their own skeletons. But, who would cease an expression of evil part of human existence.

The incident reminded me that we often miss old parents. All of us have them at our home. Some have them as their parents and some as their grandparents. And those who haven’t seen them are the most unlucky ones!

But a stark reality of our times is that, we miss their part of wishes. In a mad rush of young, oldies must be missing an attention span. And one lingering question: What concerns them most?

Concerns apart, have we ever thought what are their wishes, what are their dreams, and what are their cravings?

We often brush these queries under rug by thinking that they are old and done with their dreams! Such an insensitive way of caring. “Show off!” My sibling terms it.

So now, they are old. They don’t need anything. What they need is just food, clothes and little bit of money. And little space to live. And that’s it.

Our parents (who are presently young) are busy fulfilling our wishes. They are toiling hard to fulfil dreams they glimpse in us. But what about their old parents?

Our elders only wish to see their children living happily. That too, without any disputes and any issues. They want to stay with their children, not wish to be end up in old age homes. They want to live willingly and lovingly with their children, not forcefully.

Some might argue that elders become sour once they turn senile. But are we such an impatient progeny that we can’t handle such mood swings. Are they not same parents, who lovingly washed our dirty linens when we were just toddlers? Is she not the same mother who suffered greatly when she blossom us in her womb? So many questions, so many clichés and so many instances, and yet rot exists. What an irony!

And when a moral fabric has started to cut loose, many cry that our valley wasn’t known for all this. At present, many old age homes are cropping up across the valley. And unfortunately, nostalgia of old parents living there is leaving them troubled. These deserted elders are the same who have spent their whole life raising these children who have now shown them, door.

Now these children are prosperous and happy. And it was their time to share happiness with their old parents because of whom they are what they are proud of. But in their own swelled-secluded-spaces, they seem to have no room for their parents!

(Shiekh Tabish is studying Journalism from Women College, Srinagar)

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