musings

Bringing Up Children The Nor Way? No Way, Norway!

2012-01-25T06:29:00.000-08:00

Ah, thegreat Nor Way! A way of bringing up children that appears neither to help thechildren nor the parents, yet, it is the way, the Nor Way! It plucks childrenfrom a mother’s breast and a kindergarten they run probably all to spot thatchild with the slightest difference. They have decided what is normal and anybehaviour that deviates from that is abnormal and must be made normal byremoving from the parental influence into the waiting arms of foster parents. Thosefoster parents, of course, must have the best parenting skills on this earth.

What arethose best parenting skills? I really have no idea. How can I? I am only themother of offspring who have grown up to be good human beings and also ascientist and a manager and who are loving and caring and stay in regular touchwith me by calling me almost every day and share most of their joys andsorrows. This contact of the daughters with their mother too must be prettyabnormal in many societies and could be ground for thinking that my childrenshould have been taken away from me and put in foster care.

Well, I tooam guilty of the four sins that Sagarika and Anurup Bhattacharya are and manymore .

Sin No. 1 Feedingmy children with hands/fingers. I did that on so many occasions and never oncethought it was a crime. The worst part is that I knew of the so called correctpractices, had studied them in my Child Psychology and Child Care classes. Ihad not only read but also owned that book on Child Care by Dr Spock, yet, Idecided not to follow him.

Sin No. 2Children sleeping with parents. In spiteof there being separate rooms and beds for the children we allowed the childrento sleep with us as a treat on special occasions.

Sin No. 3 Erraticbehavior of child in school. Haha, Idistinctly remember the vivid description given by my daughters of the incidence when my elderdaughter all of seven years found herthree year old younger sister crying in her KG class and grabbed her hand andtook her to her class. How could she let her little sister cry! That theymostly topped their classes and were leaders and went on to represent theirschools and be school prefect etc isanother matter. But as far as erratic behaviour is concerned, yes, many a times.

Sin No.4Four month old baby did not look at the mother. Well, we never put them to thistest. But I do remember an even more interesting case. Had I been in Norway, Iam sure my child would not have been allowed with me another minute. My husbandhad been transferred to Mumbai. My fifteen months old daughter and I werestaying with my parents in Pune till he found a flat to rent in Mumbai. Mydaughter was very attached to her father (which does not automatically meanthat she was not attached to me) and cried for him every night. When he managedto rent a flat and we were finally going to Mumbai by train, she was very happyand excited. As our station was nearing my husband started arranging ourluggage and went near the door to look for a porter. My daughter thought he wasagain leaving us and started screaming. She just wanted to get off my lap andrun to him. Anyone looking for finding faults in my parenting skills and thosenot even looking out for them would have thought I had kidnapped my daughter.

Well, thesefour were similar to the sins of Sagarika and Anurup. Mine must have been 400.My daughter refused to sleep and I nevercould follow Dr Spock and put her in her bed in a separate room and let her cryherself to sleep. I carried her in my arms the whole night andsang lullabies. Whenshe refused to eat I roamed about the house with her in my arms and a bowl ofher food and feeding her while singing songs for her. However wrong that methodmight have been in the eyes of various cultures, it worked for both her and I,she was healthy and happy and we are both happy enjoying the best relationshipa mother and daughter can hope to have.

We in Indiaand probably in most parts of the world have parents and children who areindividuals. We are not made in factories and are not uniform like peas in apod. We don’t really go by a book alone while raising our children and go bywhat we have learnt in our society and by common sense. That might not be goodenough for Norway, so I suggest they should just tell people from othercultures with different value systems and ways of bringing up children to justpack up and go home and not kidnap their babies, especially when neither thebabies nor the parents are their citizens.

Norway hasa program to ensure the welfare of its children. Any parent who does not comeup to its exacting standard is not allowed to keep the child and such childrenare handed over to foster parents or institutes to bring up. I am very surethat the idea behind this must have been very good and idealistic. But asusually happens in most cases, the system becomes greater than the people itwas created to serve. The state must be spending a great deal of money andeffort on running this foster care system. Would it not be better if a smallpart of it was spent on educating and helping the biological parents to becomethe kind of parents the state wants them to be. It would save both the parentsand children a lot of heartache.

It is possiblethat Sagarika is not the ideal ‘ Norway’ mother. Maybe, not even an idealmother in any other way. Yet, if she was breast feeding her baby, there couldnot be any better feed for her baby than her mother’s milk. Or has that countrycome up with some better feed? Can there be a warmer place than a mother’sarms?

They saySagarika shouted at the police station so she is not capable of looking afterher children. What is wrong in a distressed mother screaming at her tormentors?She seems docile to me. If someone had tried to snatch my child from my arms,they would have had to almost chop my arms off to get at my child.

This wholesaga of children being snatched from their parents is very sad. The intentionsmight be great but we all know that unless the parents are absolute sadists orsuffering from dangerous incurable mental health disorders, there is no reason totake children away from them. Norway has to show some proof that childrenbrought up in foster homes do better in life than those brought up in theirbiological families. I have only found (on the net and it could be wrong) what

http://www.childresearch.net/RESOURCE/ESSAY/2011/STORO.HTMsays on foster care.......

Research onchildren and young people in foster care

“Accordingto Egelund et.al (2009) and Backe-Hansen et.al (2010) there is noNordic/British research with strong enough methodology that can predictoutcomes of out-of-home placements. Clausen and Kristofersen (2008) have foundthat young Norwegian adults with care careers (both foster homes andresidential care) have severe problems after the transition to adult life. Theyface a larger risk than their peers to have low income and no higher education.They are more likely to suffer various illnesses and die in a young age. Theyalso are convicted of crimes more often than their peers who have not been incare.

Despitethese statistics, it is widely assumed that foster care has a very positiveimpact on children and young people at the time of placement and while they arestaying in the foster home. Some of the problems they face in independent lifemay be more rooted in their problematic family histories before they came intocare, while some problems too may be related to insufficient support and otherforms of follow-up assistance after they have left care.”

If this is true than why should parents andchildren go through this trauma of a separation? Separation could be justified if a very largepercentage of children brought up in foster care did extremely well in life,much better than those raised in their biological or troubled homes.

http://www.childresearch.net/RESOURCE/ESSAY/2011/STORO.HTM

says thisabout the approval process foster parents…….

“Approvalprocess

Childwelfare services in Norway are required to approve every new foster home. Inorder to avoid possible favoritism, the child welfare services in a districtother than the one where the placement is to occur are required to make thefinal approval. This approval process is much concerned with insuring thefoster parent’s general ability to bring up children as well as the suitabilityof the foster home for each child in question. In Norway great emphasis isplaced on the needs of the individual child as a guide for the choice of thefoster home. The question of matching is considered an important one andspecial consideration is given to the child’s ethnic, religious, cultural andlinguistic background. A central guiding principle is that the child welfareservices should have the best interest of the child in mind. The Directoratefor Children, Youth and Family Affairs has issued guidelines stressing that ifsomeone is related through kinship with the child or in other ways has a closerelationship with the child, they should be looked upon as the preferred choice– if they are judged as qualified in terms of the aforementioned criteria. Thebiological parents of the child should always be invited to give their opinionwhen the foster home is chosen. If the child is 7 years old or older, her/hisfeelings about the placement are by law to be elicited.

The childwelfare services in charge of a placement offer specialized training for newfoster parents in what is called the Pride training program. This is a coursebased on ten three-hour sessions. In addition the workers of the child welfareservices make four visits to the proposed foster home for each child.”

Why wouldthey talk about favouritism unless people had something to gain from becomingfoster parents? Had it been a selfless service there would not have been anymention of favouritism.

If ChildWelfare Services could provide ten three hours training sessions to futurefoster parents why can they not provide the same to the biological parents?

http://www.africanpress.info/2007/02/20/barnevernet-child-protection-services-in-norway-destroy-families-says-professor-skaanland/ says that

“The socialservices even advertise for foster parents to take on a foster child at asalary of over NOK 300.000 per year (approx. 40.000 Euros). Additionalremuneration per extra child, often plus tax free “expense coverage” plus paidvacation on the Mediterranean, etc.

Recentlyfoster parents have also had the monthly child benefit put at their disposal.The child benefit for a child not living with its parents was previously to besaved up in a bank account for the child, to be given over to the child at 18,or when it was allowed to move back to its parents.”

If this istrue then there is something very wrong somewhere. All I can say is thatparents of minors must think more than twice before they decide to immigrate toa country where your child is no longer yours. No amount of money, opportunityor the promise of good life is worth it. We must read the fine print with avery good magnifying glass before we decide to go and live in another country.

MiredMirage

PS: Even ifthe children are reunited with their parents or grandparents the childrenAbhigyan and Eshvarya must have forgotten their parents, their mother tongueand all things connected with their culture. I hope Sagarika and AnurupBhattacharya had the sense to become more fluent in Norvegian language because now that must be the only languagethey would be able to connect with their children in.

MiredMirage

Churidar Pajamas

2010-12-03T06:01:00.000-08:00

Churidar Pajamas
My elder daughter, hence forth referred to as Eldau, bought some lovely babyish kurtas, so cute that I would have gladly traded my hard earned silver on my head for the coal on any ones head and the mounds of gradually accumulated fat for a flat as a washing board tummy! She wore one of them with an old pair of tailor stitched pajamas and the ill fitting pajamas promptly made a churrr… sound and tore. It seemed as if the pajamas had decided to give me a hint of how the fitting ought to have been. It looked as if a triangular piece of cloth was missing!

A churidar pajama is a piece of art as well as science and if one saw the making of it one would marvel at the ingenuity of the person who first invented it. If I were a churidar wearing person, I would take off my hat, if I wore or owned one, and salute the guy or the gal who invented it. As it is, I do admire that person every time I see a churidar or think about it, which is about once in two years, but considering my age, it would make it about 27 times in my life, give or take 2 or 3, since I probably admired nothing but myself and my mom as a baby and young child.

A churidar is all about diagonals. Nowhere else would diagonals hold such pride of place other than in pipings (these are stuff found on the edges of necks in blouses and kurtas.) as they do in a churidar. A churidar pajama is an almost skin tight thing and it fits so beautifully only because of the elasticity accorded by the cloth cut and stitched diagonally. If the cloth had not been cut diagonally, no power on this earth could have succeeded in putting a pair of legs in the pajamas.

Well, when the pajamas gave way, Eldau handed them to me to mend. I am the mom of Eldau as you may have guessed and moms cannot be moms unless they do stuff for their kids even if the kids are post doctoral research scholars or themselves moms or even grandmoms. So, I promptly offered to not only mend the pajamas but also stitch another pair for her.

The cutting and stitching of a churidar is something that the best minds cannot remember without a draft. I am an old and forgetful person and without the required draft. All I remembered was the diagonals and the stitching of a bag. One has to make an envelope kind of thing and stitch a funny bag first so that the legs come all diagonally and hence elastic and there is no wastage of cloth. As I have already told you it’s an amazing art or science depending on which amazes you more. Or if voodoo amazes you better then it is a piece of superb voodoo.

When I decide to do something I always do it. That’s why I never decide to do anything worthwhile but only mundane stuff like pajamas. So here I was trying my hand at churidars on the sole basis of diagonals and no wastage formula. But the bag was an elusive thing so I decided to use my imagination and cut the pajamas thinking I was cutting them out of a bag and imagining where what would join. Believe me , I did not waste a cm of cloth! I imagined and cut and stitched and the pajamas are ready to be delivered. I am as proud of myself as a peahen. The only thing is that no peahen has ever had to possibly contend herself with fitting her Eldau into any pajamas, churidar or otherwise, in the long history of peahenhood.

I am all on tenterhooks till the Eldau says, ‘yeyyyyyyy,( or more likely, yubbyyyyyy…) they fitted.’ It would be extremely amazing if they fitted her and extremely amazingly hilarious if they did not! Anyway, I have mended her old pajamas and added the missing triangle piece of cloth that the tailor had forgotten. Now, that sure is some consolation. Wish me luck please. Tomorrow the Elsil( also known as elder son in law) comes and collects them for my Eldau.

Mired Mirage

Note: You could also wish Eldau luck, less for getting into the pajamas and more for managing to successfully get out of them. Don’t they say.’ the proof of pajamas is more in getting out of them than in getting into them?’ Or was it something about a pudding?

A guide to Hindi words:

Churidar= tight fitting pajamas worn in India and Pakistan
Kurta= shirt, here it refers to one worn with salwars and pajamas
Salwar= kind of trousers worn in India and Pakistan

Mired Mirage

Systemic Hijack of Culture

2009-05-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

In the last few years there has been a systemic attempt to hijack religion, culture and nationality in the name of ancient values in many parts of the world. It has happened in our neighbouring countries and frequently in our own country. Somehow, fortunately in India, so far, such attempts have been made and have usually died their natural death. But looking at other countries we cannot afford to be complacent.
Recently we had attacks on pub going women. Not much action has been taken against the perpetrators of this act. Nor has the society made sufficient show of their anger at the wanton act. Now a group of young women have started a campaign on their blog to collect pink underwear and send them to the perpetrators of these mindless acts of trying to subjugate people to their way of thinking through acts of force.
The idea of the whole campaign, The Pink Chaddi campaign, http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/ does not seem to go down well with people who don't understand the underlying purpose of it. The idea is to mock, to trivialize a section of society which wants to assume the role of guardians of society.
True, its also attention grabbing, but then the more people, specially the young, realise the dangers inherent in any sort of dicta being issued by any section of society, even when they are non violent,( in the case under discussion they were violent too! ) the better.
A number of articles have been written about the dangers of allowing other people to dictate our lives. I too wrote one, but did any of them serve the purpose? Absolutely not. So if this method serves the purpose, then what's wrong with it? It’s not hurting anyone. It’s just making people aware of the dangers of letting someone else takeover the reins of our lives.
Drinking or pubs might not be the ideal things in life. Any number of other activities might also injure us. Do we abdicate the responsibility of teaching what is right or wrong, moral or immoral to any self proclaimed guardians of our society and culture? Do we inculcate the sense of right and wrong in our own children when they are growing up and then not trust them when they are adults? Do we assume that our progeny would never become adults enough to make their own choices? The choice is our own and the time to make it is right now. Tomorrow will be too late. The whole world is reeling under these tendencies which manifest themselves very innocuously and by the time we will wake up it will be too late.
You can deal with a few alcoholics in society, you can deal with most other ills but once the right to choose has been frittered away, there is nothing more left to deal with except dealing with the business of survival itself. Cannot we see what is happening around in our neighbouring countries? When it starts it commences with simple values that many people in a society hold dear. So it is allowed to go on for a few years. By the time people realise that these are no longer their values that are being thrust upon them, the stranglehold of such groups is too strong to break free or to even protest.
If Indian culture or even the Indian way of life has survived so many invasions and centuries of foreign rule it is only because of the reason of our flexibility, adaptability and the non rigid nature of our religion and culture. Take that away and nothing worth cherishing will be left. Even a non believer was accepted in our fold. There are examples of debates being held on all kinds of issues including what was dharma, truth and the like. Most other societies had a holy book to tell them how to live. We believed in finding our own answers. If this special and distinct quality of the Indian way of life does not survive there is nothing left to distinguish Indian values from any other or one religion from the other. How can we, in the name of this culture or religion, do the very opposite of what we stand for?
Even if we go by our Constitution, which we should, I am sure the basic principle is of freedom without any discrimination. How and why are we discriminating or allowing anyone to discriminate between the sexes, age groups of adults? How can we assume to preach to adults? In case we do not consider young people to be adults even at the legal age of marriage or using their franchise then we ought to increase that age assuming Indian minds do not mature like the rest of the world's.

Mired Mirage

PS:I wrote this article during the height of the pink chaddi controversy.I did not post it on my blog at that time due to some vague reasons. I don't even remember them now. :) The reason why i am posting it now is because someone pointed out to me this article which mentions a few Hindi blogs including mine regarding this topic.

Mired Mirage

Rachida Dati and Being A Woman

2009-01-16T02:06:00.000-08:00

Being a woman is not easy. Being a working woman appears to be tough. Being a working woman who is in the public eye appears to be tougher. Rachida Dati, the French minister of justice is a brand new mother. There is nothing unusual about it. She is 43. That too is not unusual these days. Lots of women are having babies in their forties. What is unusual is her being back at office, attending meetings, just five days after delivering her baby by caesarean section. I for one can’t say how good that is for her health. If her obstetrician has allowed her and she feels fit enough, good for her. Who are we to intrude?
The trouble is that things that would not raise an eyebrow in case of men, tend to get everyone’s hackles up very often in case of women. (not that there could ever be a similar example of a man delivering a baby and joining work!) Sometimes, like in this case, one can’t even complain. What she has done, should justifiably be hers and her business alone. A lot of people could have been admiring her for her commitment to her work, her resilience, her will power. But here she appears to have generated a controversy. Women, specially the feminists, see this as an act of treason to their sex. They feel and rightly so, that her example could be used by employers to undermine the hard- fought and harder-won maternity rights.
A man could have a heart bypass, get a leg amputated, or donate a kidney and go to work any day he chose to and no one would bother to judge him. In Rachida’s case, the feminists would have been on her side had the traditionalists been sanctioning her for being a careless mother. But here are women, who want the right to choose more than anything else, denying Rachida the very same right! Does not seem right and yet, can they be blamed?
This act of the minister might not, though, lead to a law denying women the maternity leave; yet, it might change the expectations of the employers, especially in case of women occupying higher posts. They might expect another woman, high up on the corporate ladder to emulate her. But should that be her problem? Should that stop her from doing what she thinks is right? Or is it that she is doing this only out of a sense of insecurity? Is it that she feared that if she did not join office soon enough, she would lose her job? If a woman with her kind of powerful and prestigious job succumbs to such worries and pressures what would be the plight of her lesser sisters?
‘Sisters’ seems to be the keyword. It’s like preindependence India, when every Indian had to wear his/her nationalism in the form of khadi. The value of choice had to take a backseat when the more immediate one of independence was at stake. Perhaps what women expect from her is the same. Renounce the value of choice for the more immediate one of right to maternity benefits, the right to not to be penalized for being women and being mothers. Often women have to choose between motherhood and career.
Sisters, sisterhood… however sinister the implications of being put in a category, a class might be, yet women have to unite under a banner, which might as well be SISTERHOOD – a symbol of WOMEN OF THE WORLD.

Mired Mirage

The latest nursery rhyme from Hyderabad

2009-01-10T01:40:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest nursery rhyme from Hyderabad,India.

Raju Raju
Yes papa.

Cheating the shareholders?
No papa.

Telling lies?
No papa.

Open the company's balance sheet.
Ha ha ha !

Mired Mirage

PS: Inspired by the latest corporate fraud.

Mired Mirage

Terror attacks in our cities

2008-07-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

We Indians are not new to terror attacks. It has become a part of our life. True, the terrorist has the choice of choosing its target. The police and the intelligence agencies have a tough job on their hands, especially when our own countrymen and women have joined forces with the foreign enemy. It could be understood if a few of the 16 bombs had gone undetected and the rest had been defused, but the fact that all of them went off killing and maiming members of our society, shows that our intelligence and police machinery is seriously in need of an overhaul. The fact that our Home Minister says that a plan is being worked out shows the dismal state of affairs. Now he is planning to make a plan! Tell that to the dead and the maimed and their relatives!

There is no use waiting for the government to wake up. Now we must wake up. We have to become proactive, alert and report any suspicious activity or person around us. We must report even if the suspicious person is our family member. We cannot be sitting ducks for the terrorists. We must co-operate with the skeletal police force that is at the disposal of the public.( with a large force deployed to safeguard our ministers and politicians, the vacancies not being filled and the police being paid peanuts to do one the most crucial and difficult tasks in our society.) The leaders of our society must talk to the police and inquire what help do they expect from the general public. Maybe, it is time we formed vigilance committees in each neighbourhood. But in that case we cannot afford to fall into the trap of taking law into our own hands. That is a trap which we can easily fall into and must guard against.

It is very easy to blame a particular group or community for all our troubles. There might be overwhelming evidence of the participation of a particular community in these terror attacks. Before doing that we must ask ourselves the all important question, ’what is the aim of these attacks? Is it to kill just a few hundred people here and there in our country? Can they destroy us in that manner? Can they really destroy our economy by damaging a few structures?’ The answer is a resounding no. The aim of these strikes is not just killing a few hundred people, the aim is to make us get angry and suspicious of a community and induce a backlash in the form of riots. That is the surest way of inducting new recruits to the terror organizations. The aim is to make us and the world lose faith in our booming economy. We must fight terrorism and must defeat the nefarious aim of the terrorists, the aim of dividing our people. Nothing must ever be allowed to divide our society and country.

Once we start dividing ourselves there is no end to divisions. We can go on dividing and subdividing ourselves, in terms of religion, sects, sub-sects, castes, sub-castes, class, language, state, district and so on. If we want to defeat terrorism, we cannot afford to serve their purpose and hand them over disgruntled members of our society on a platter. Yes, we must show the callous government that our life is not cheap by showing what we think of them at the time of casting our ballot. That is the only language the politicians understand. Let us never vote on the basis of caste and religion but only on the basis of performance.

Mired Mirage

27-8-2008

Dolphins perform at Seaworld, Orlando - Florida

2008-05-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

The Meandering Road

2007-08-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

The Meandering Road

There is this beautiful road
A broken down, beaten down road
A road so narrow that two oxcarts
Or two cars cannot pass it together.
When two cars approach each other
From opposite sides, it’s like a friendly
Battle of wits, of who would back off
At least a hundred meters to give way
So the other could pass you in triumph
There are potholes big enough to
Swallow a wheel ,
A road where you have to remember
When to take the car gently over
Huge gaping holes,
Where exactly to avoid a speed breaker
Carelessly erected by a villager.
Yet, a road so beautiful,
That none can equal its charm
Up gentle hills, down the dales
And then up again in its gentle pride
Crossing a dry stream here
And an angry river in rains.
Near the river,
By the side of the road,
Is the burning ghat
I see a tiny pyre
Peasants in white
Their women in black
Wrap arounds
With colourful backless blouses
With flowing dupattas
Covering their heads
They all sit around the pyre
Looking at that fire
Which is consuming a loved one
I always wonder,
Why always such a small pyre
Do only their young ones die
Or only the old shrunken ones die
These peasants are nice and sturdy
Maybe they live long and
Die only when shrunken and old.
I pass the pyre in thoughts deep
Till the road meanders again
It passes through coconut groves
Then come in sight the sugarcane fields
Bananas grow on one side
And peanuts on the other.
Millet and castor and fields of wheat
As far as my eyes can see
With greenery all around
And a road that can never be straight
It snakes through turning left or right
Rubbing its shoulders with acacia trees
There are lovely trees with firy flowers
Ah, the moon has come out
And I watch it as I go
It accompanies me like a friend
All through the meandering road
Now on my left and now on my right
From behind the clouds
It plays hide and seek
Sometimes I see a fox or two
Many a times a majestic
Leopard too can be seen
The cows and buffalos are returning home
Make room for them
For they have the first right of way
Here comes a lone shepherd
With his crook in hand
Minding his goats and sheep
They all have patience
No one is in a rush
Neither me nor the shepherd
There comes a bullock cart
Laden with sugarcane
Now we just cannot pass
For minutes we reverse the car
Till the cart passes us by.
Ah , here we are truly stuck
A tractor with a harvester in tow
All we can do now is to bow
We back again and with
Lots of maneuvers let it pass
Now I see the stone houses
My destination is not far
I see the pond on my right
With lotuses shining bright
My home is near
I say good bye to my
Meandering road with a sigh
I promise, I will come again
Dear road you had better remain.
Mired Mirage
Ghughuti Basuti
7/5/07
Post script : Alas, my meandering road has been almost fully washed away in this years heavy rains.
Now I can no longer go on my beautiful road.
Mired Mirage

Inundated

2007-08-08T12:04:00.001-07:00

More destruction

2007-08-08T11:46:00.001-07:00

Rains play havoc with Saurashtra

2007-08-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

Rains have been battering our area almost non stop for the last three days. We were forced to close the school , our buses got stranded and thankfully the passengers found refuge atop a goods laden truck and spent more than twelve hours in the lashing rain. The village houses have been inundated with the rain waters. We are trying to provide them relief to the best of our ability. Here are some pictures of the sorry state the roads have been reduced to.

2007-02-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

Senior Citizens And Remarriage
Old people in India, particularly in Gujarat state, registering at marriage bureaus, have become a repeat news item in Times Of India. It does not surprise me .What surprises me is the fact that such news headlines are preceded by an exclamation mark. It’s the most logical thing to do for a thinking, life loving senior citizen. Another thing that I find a little disconcerting is the stress given to companionship in these news items. True, senior citizens marry mainly for companionship, but a little love and romance too would not be out of place. Perhaps, the children can accept the idea of companionship a little more readily. Be as it may, the trend is definitely heartening. Today’s article also talks about them also looking for live in relationships. I wonder, though, if at their stage of life it matters whether it is a legal marriage or any other arrangement. Perhaps, some people are looking at the option of live in relationship to avoid the property disputes, in future, in case of the termination of the relationship as a result of death, discord or incompatibility. There probably could be some legal solutions like a disclaimer, or some kind of mutual legal agreement about this.
The idea of senior citizens finding a partner is very beneficial to society as a whole and the persons concerned in particular. This is something very common in the west but a relatively new phenomenon in India. I would like to discuss the likely benefits and practicality of such an arrangement especially in the context of today’s reality.
Most of us in India are accustomed to the idea of young adults getting married. If someone stays single he/she is often advised, goaded, coerced into marriage. Most friends and relatives are happy to help them find an alliance. Marriage at middle age is also accepted. It is only when a person has crossed fifty and marries that we look a bit surprised and some of us may even find it a bit out of place or some may even find it ridiculous.
If we leave aside the child bearing and rearing aspect of a marriage, then these mature people are the ones who really need someone to share their lives with. Working people hardly find time to share their lives with their spouses. It is at this stage, say after sixty, of life that one finds the time and the patience to be with someone, talk, take walks, share little and big household duties, discuss the past, dream about the present and the future. One learns to appreciate companionship, sharing and caring. There are very few avenues left of spending time with people. Usually, the children are grown up, settled in their lives and there are no responsibilities towards them left. Loneliness grips the senior citizen like never before.
The joint family is no more and even when it is there, the form of the joint family has changed drastically. At the most, it consists of parents and their married children. In such a case if the senior person loses his /her spouse, there is no other person of his/her age group in the family. All the other members are busy with their lives. It is only this person who finds time hanging heavy and even if he/she has work or hobbies, sharing, talking, and togetherness are still missing. It is not practical to expect the younger generation to spend and enjoy the limited time they have with the older generation. Supposing they do so, even then the comradeship is missing. One need people of ones own age to share one’s life with. It is often seen that when a parent is single and old the children often feel a sense of obligation to spend time with him/ her. Sometimes, this leads to resentment and heart burn. Often the young couple feels compelled to return home early from a party while the other friends are still enjoying. This may be acceptable a few times but when done over long years it leads to resentment. The parent can no longer be the most important person in the children’s lives. One needs a spouse to get the attention the most important person in our lives gets.
Looking from the perspective of the senior citizen, he / she has spent life earning and working hard. Now is the time when he /she can relax, visit places, enjoying the fruits of labour. But one needs someone to enjoy life with. It is very logical that there is a spouse around. So if unfortunately, the spouse is lost there is no harm in finding a new one to share life with. Old age is also not an easy time to make new friends. The avenues of meeting people are very limited. The life expectancy has increased so much that it no longer is a question of a few lone years, it can become decades of lonely life accompanied by sickness when a loving and caring person is most valuable.
If it is not possible to find a partner on ones own then where is the harm in making use of specialized services to meet with perspective life partners? The best and the happiest scenario would be one where the children, friends and relatives encourage the lonely person to look for someone special in life. It would make the decision so much easier, especially in the context of traditional Indian society and family. This gift of ‘I care for you’ attitude is the best gift children can give their lonely parent.

2005-12-07T07:14:00.000-08:00