Of old & new

Ira Pande

AH, the glories of spring! Outside my window, I revel in the burst of colour in my modest garden where shocking pink geraniums sit next to bright yellow pansies — a fashion choice that only nature can get away with. Birds chirrup as they steal twigs from trees and bushes to make nests where soon new life will be safely nestled. Local feral cats stalk all these locations for tasty meals later. This is nature’s eternal cycle where life goes on even as danger lurks round the corner.

The same cycle is repeated ad infinitum in the larger world, where powerful countries swallow weaker ones with no thought to those who have to suffer death or displacement. I am hesitant to go into the area of geo-political issues but surely, as citizens of a common planet, morality and ethics must count for more than realpolitik. The sight of devastated cities, terrified babies clinging to their mothers in bomb shelters, heroic treks made across snow drifts to reach safer areas — how can one not see the human distress and suffering in every such frame? It has taken us less than a century to forget the horrors of the two World Wars to bring us to the brink of a third, which will be the end of this world as we know it. With deluded and trigger-happy men sitting on nuclear buttons, who can say what one mistake will cost us all? In India, we await our stranded children while those who do not have a home to go back to will probably live in refugee camps and struggle to get their broken lives together.

This is the scenario in war zones and disturbed areas, but what of the indignity that abandoned parents and lonely old people are facing in a normal world? As more and more young Indians choose to live abroad, the problem of facing old age alone has acquired epidemic proportions. Yet, here, too, those who have money are better insulated. I was recently in Dehradun and spent a sunny afternoon with old friends in a retirement home called Antara, where they have chosen to spend the rest of whatever time they have left. In terms of comfort and amenities, I have seldom seen anything like this retirement home. Everything that one could possibly want — from a posh club, meals on order, house-keeping staff, a mini golf course — is available. Clean, unpolluted air, peaceful and serene surroundings with the Mussoorie ridge facing your balcony, and a multi-specialty hospital literally next door, its promoters have taken care to cater to every need that elderly and single persons desire.

Of course, all this comes at a hefty price and is meant for those who can afford it. So that knocks people like us out of this Shangri-La, but I came away thinking that even if I had the money, would I like to spend my life in such splendid isolation? And among people who are older and frailer than us? No way! Give me the mixed community of the old, middle-aged and young any day. The sound of children shrieking outside my bedroom window as they play in the facing park may bring an end to my afternoon siesta, yet I cannot help but smile as I see them fight over whose turn it is on the swing, or watch them dangle dangerously from the jungle gym. Our mornings are spent among the dedicated walkers who struggle with stiff joints and bent spines but come each day to soak in the sun. Evenings are very often the time when the young couples — journalists, professional or corporate workers, lawyers and CAs — drop in for a drink and lively debates on the state of the country. Sometimes I have to shoo them away, sometimes we share our dinner and often whatever is available in my fridge gets raided. It’s the warmth that I cherish, for it gives me the adrenalin rush that a dreary life during the day — reading, doing a crossword or dealing with mundane domestic chores — is often all about. These visitors bring an outside world that we have retreated from and still wish to be connected to. I wouldn’t change the pleasures of this noisy, lively world for all the serenity of an Antara.

In case you think elderly folk like us are happy and contented, let me draw your attention to a problem an old friend asked me to write about. They live now in Delhi but have a nice bungalow in Sector 10, Chandigarh. It was rented out to a young couple for some years but when they wanted to live there, they discovered to their horror that the tenants refused to vacate it. Mind you, he was a very important personality in his time but even the high connections they had have not been able to get them their house out of the clutches of the squatters. Countless trips to the lower courts, presided by rude and unhelpful judges, have exhausted them. They know that if they pass on, their children who live abroad will never get the property back. In Delhi, colonial tenancy laws had similarly created a slum of up-market areas such as Connaught Place where rents fixed a century ago were unfairly used to take over prime commercial property.

Perhaps, Chandigarh needs to reconsider its tenancy laws as well.

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