The right to choices

Should a frail old woman, capable of looking after herself, suffer because of the society in which she lives? Her husband died years ago, an...

Should a frail old woman, capable of looking after herself, suffer because of the society in which she lives? Her husband died years ago, and left a decent amount of property. After his death, both her sons divided the property equally. At that time, they all enjoyed a cordial relationship and, therefore, didn’t realise the need for setting aside something for their mother. The mother could live with either of them. But the relationship between the brothers didn’t remain cordial. Their mother became the victim of the falling-out.

Each brother now wants the mother to stay with him. Not because of love for her, but because she possesses some gold jewellery. Come to think of it, in a society where most women do not have a say in family decisions, spending on unproductive things such as gold jewellery may not be a bad thing after all.

Since the mother is wanted only for what she possesses, these feelings show up in the maltreatment shown to her. On such occasions, the mother moves over to the other son. But only till the time the other family also behaves likewise.

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If she has her way, she wouldn’t want to stay with either of them. Wiser with experience, she wouldn’t want to give her jewellery to them either. She wouldn’t even want to leave anything after her death. All she desires is to spend the remaining part of life peacefully, by herself.

She could hand over all her jewellery to somebody trustworthy and assures her a decent monthly income. If she sells her jewellery and deposits the proceeds in a bank, the interest may not be sufficient and, moreover, somebody must inherit the balance in the account.

Does that mean that there is nothing she could do? No, a financial product called annuity that is typically sold by life insurance companies does precisely this. It guarantees a monthly amount so long as a person is alive, and upon death it even takes care of funeral expenses. A few pieces of jewellery is all that she has now. To give that up requires the person or the agency entrusted with her last possessions to be really trustworthy.

My personal experience with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) when it had a monopoly in the market, and now with some of the private companies in other sectors such as banks and cellular companies, does not inspire enough confidence for me to recommend that route to her.

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The level of trust required by elderly people who cannot do much running around in their twilight years, is the single most important reason for the government to play an important role in the pension sector that is now being opened to private companies.

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