There was a sense of deja vu as I read about Grandma Agathe, living a lonely life in Cologne, even as her famous grandsons — the Schumacher brothers —live life on the fast track, racing from one success to another. Of course, one needn’t look so far for representatives of this tribe of the neglected elderly. Closer home, there are several grannies abandoned by not-so-famous grandchildren. How can one forget the lost-and-not-found (read, never sought) grannies and grandpas at last year’s Mahakumbh? My own childhood was rife with visits by distant elderly relatives cast away by their immediate family. Their visits used to range from anything between a few hours to several weeks. My brothers and I were strictly instructed to be polite to them and respect them for their age. I particularly remember one old lady, so universally disliked that few relatives allowed her to stay on. Ours was one of the few homes from where she wouldn’t be turned out. This lady, Ammai as she was called, had seen better days. Her husband was a wealthy merchant who had died young in an accident leaving her to fend for their five daughters. Not being quite adept at money management, she squandered away the capital she had and, later, got her daughters married, first, by selling the family property and, finally, the bungalow in which she lived. If she had thought she could spend the rest of her life with her daughters, she was proved wrong. None of her sons-in-law would have her with them, thanks to her sharp tongue. Left with no other alternative, she started spending her time by dividing it between the households that would have her. There used to be another old man who used to turn up at least once a week, but never stayed for more than a few hours. He lived with his son and the only thing he wanted was food, which we were told was rationed at his own home and was never enough to satiate his appetite. Once he had his fill, he would laze on the verandah for an hour or so and leave quietly. I had often wondered why they don’t stay in some old age home which would provide them much-needed shelter, nutritious food and essential medicines without the accompanying obligations. It would have also saved them the embarrassment and humiliation at being made to feel most unwelcome at some of the houses they turned to for shelter and food. But, I guess, that’s not the way they wanted it. They wanted to be surrounded by a family, even if it was not theirs, surrounded by kids even if those were not their grandchildren, surrounded by laughter even if they had no part of it. In the twilight of their life they may not have been as useful as they once were and their personalities may have acquired some eccentricity or other which provokes irritation in many of us. But unspoken and unsaid was that intense yearning to be part of a family and its ripples rather than to be confined in the sterile precincts of an old age home.
