Learning to live with loneliness, elderly find home away from home

The advancement of medical science and increase in life expectancy has unexpectedly created its own set of issues — with old age comes failing physical and mental health, the need for assisted living and associated costs — all this just at the time when a person is no longer physically able to take up full-time employment, has no regular income (except for those who have the good fortune of a pension), and family members are living separately, in different cities, sometimes abroad, or are no more.

In the mad scramble to survive, some who cannot afford to look after their aging parents simply abandon them. Old people, fending for themselves, are a common enough sight at all city hospitals, and they have been brought there by the children over long distances, just to be left there. Some children don’t bother even with that, abandoning their parent/s at railway stations, markets and other crowded places. Some senior citizens face eviction from their homes by their own children.

It is now understood that some state intervention is required to look after the growing numbers of senior citizens. Section 19 of the Maintenance of Parents and Senior Citizens Act stipulates that a state is expected to establish the necessary number of old age homes in each district with at least 150 senior citizens in each home. The Act was enacted for welfare and legal protection of senior citizens and also contains a provision making it mandatory for children to provide for their aged parents.

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Chandigarh has two senior citizen homes run by the administration, with a capacity for 66 people. Admissions to the Sector 43 home cost Rs 6,600 per month for an individual. The Sector 15 home is free.

Harbhajan’s case is as unique as it is tragic. His son is in Canada. His daughter is settled in Delhi; while his son has never visited him, his daughter came after the accident, after being informed by the administration, but left soon after. Before the High Court order, Harbhajan had been turned away from the Sector 15 old age home in July 2016. The UT administration, giving reasons for not taking him in, told the court that “as per reports, he is offensive and habitual of making unnecessary/ un-frivolous complaints frequently. From his behaviour, it also seems that he needs psychiatric intervention.”

He had been living in different gurdwaras until the court intervened and ordered the Administration to provide him shelter at the Sector 43 home.

When Harbhajan was hit by a motorcycle earlier this month, keeping in view the High Court watch over his case, the administration deputed three employees of the social welfare department for his care at the hospital. The hospital authorities are likely to discharge him in the next few days. He will be taken back to the Sector 43 home until further orders. At Sector 43 home, it is a paid home and those who live here are retired employees and almost everyone get pension regularly. There is a fixed charge of Rs 6,600 for accommodation besides each occupant has to pay electricity and water charges as well. The occupants of this old age home runs the mess on their own.

UT officials say doctors visit on a regular basis and friends and family members visit frequently to meet the people living here. They also go out to see people.

Residents of the senior citizens’ home at Sector 15, Chandigarh, relax on the lawn; (Express Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

At the Sector 15 home maintained by the social welfare department, the capacity is for 34 senior citizens. The place is restricted of widows/widowers who have no person to look after, senior citizens with no person to look after, with no place to live and have no income to support their living. Currently, there are 28 homeless people living in this old age home and officials say many more can be ‘adjusted’.

Prem Prakash Sharma, 80, never married, has been living at the home for past six years. He had migrated from Lahore along with his five brothers in 1947, and had a drycleaning shop on rented accommodation – in Shimla. When he could not continue (why could he not continue —- because of advancing age) he moved into the old age home. His only surviving brother lives in Panchkula. But Prem Prakash says he decided not to live with them.

“I have always lived alone. I could not have lived in a family because I am accustomed to being by myself,” says Sharma.

He says he has found a new and different family at the Sector 15 home. “There is now no one but this home. We have to take care of each other,” Sharma says.

He shares his room with another homeless person who has now become his best friend in this senior citizens’ home. His day begins with a morning walk in the park outside the home and when he returns his routine of newspaper reading begins. He goes through most of the papers including an Urdu one —he had learnt the language in Lahore where he had studied till Class IV.

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The residents often get visits from school children and are taken outside for visits to religious places, for sightseeing and cinemas.

70-year-old Vidyapatee shifted to the old age home a year after her husband died of cancer. The couple had no children. They had been living at a rented accommodation in Hallomajra. She says the landlord continued to provide the shelter but a year after her husband died she took the decision to leave on her own as she did not want to take advantage of the house owner’s generosity, nor did she want to become someone else’s burden.

“There was no compulsion to leave. I came on my own and found this place. Now life is restricted to this place,” she says. She says she is happy and content to live in the Sector 15 home.

In December last year, the High Court suggested that the UT should explore the possibility of starting more homes and this was under consideration, officials say. Both the homes are almost filled to capacity. There is no waiting list in either of the two homes.

Rajeshwar Kumar Walia, 81, at the library in Arya Samaj, Sector 7, Chandigarh, where he has lived for the past 12 years (Express Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

UT social welfare department officials say on January 11 advertisement in “three leading newspapers (Hindi, English and Punjabi) was given” calling the applications for admission in old-age home.

“But till date no application has been received. The present homes are not fully utilised,” said an official, adding that as and when, need arises in future, the social welfare department will construct more old-age homes or expand/increase the capacity of present homes.

State-run senior homes aren’t the only refuge the elderly find in the city. A number of non-governmental organisations, particularly the religious institutions have also jumped in to provide shelter to the senior citizens in the last spell of their lives.

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A room attached with a kitchen and bathroom, free medical facilities, regular checkup from PGI and the security of their valuables is being provided to aged persons staying at Vridha Ashram being operated by Arya Samaj in Sector 7 and Sector 19.

Rajesh Kumar Walia, 81, has now spent more than 12 years of his life at Vridha Ashram (old-age home) at the Sector 7 home and described these past years as “satisfactory”.

Hailing from Dinanagar in Gurdaspur, Walia, says, “My day starts with a long walk from Sector 7 to Sukhna Lake and back. After the death of my wife, there was no one for look after me. My only daughter is married and settled in Mumbai. Initially, members of my in-laws’ family came to see me at my house but later I decided to move here. I gave my house to my daughter. There are around 14 other people like me, who are staying here for a long time. And everyone has the same story that how their partner died and when there was no one to look after them, they shifted here. The library is my favorite place to spend the time.”

The residents here are charged a lakh rupees as one time payment and are provided one room with attached kitchen and bathroom.

“They cook their food themselves and they are also allowed to hired a private cook for the preparation of their meals. Relatives of just a few of aged persons come to see them. The circumstances, in which people came here, are common – loneliness. But no one tell you about the reality”, Ravinder Talwar, president of Arya Samaj in Sector 7, said.