Tuesday, 31 July 2018

The Grey Tsunami



                                                                       The Grey Tsunami
India and the world in general have been hit by a ‘grey tsunami’, thanks to better healthcare and advanced medical technology. It is estimated that in the next three decades, globally the number of senior citizens will triple to 1.5 billion while in India it will be 0.3 billion i.e.,300 million. When even United States feels that it is unprepared to take care of its present 45 million people above the age of 65 and which is estimated to grow into 86 million by 2050, we can surmise how we can provide for our own men and women in their grey years. The latest news from the world of science is both awesome and terrifying as it relates to Computer scientists and AI (Artificial Intelligence) specialists  working on new programmes that will open the door to near everlasting life and usher in immortality. The research on ‘disrupting death’ has been successful on preserving an animal’s brain’s neural maps and it is now looking at the possibility of extending the technique to human brains. I am not going into the ethical and philosophical questions on this issue, but what is being mooted and what is currently attempted is continuity of life through digitization of neural circuits to enable the most cerebral human being to live in virtual reality. Grey Tsunami may become a virtual reality as much as it is a physical reality today.
I come from a family where on my maternal side, almost everyone had either touched or crossed 90 before they bade goodbye to the world. What was noteworthy was all of them had no physical or mental infirmity even in their ripe old age. It will not be wrong to say that they must have decided to call it a day because they wanted to start afresh as there was nothing more left for them to do in their present state. It may sound incredible, but the truth is they all died without regret, regretted by those they had left behind. 
I am now in my second half of my seventh decade. Though the maternal genes seem to be holding me well, modern life with all its stresses and tensions (mostly created by one’s own anxieties) fills me (and I am suremany others in my age group) with unknown fears about the coming decades, though philosophically I try to strengthen myself  with the thought that mental and physical decline are the inevitabilities of life before it comes to a full stop and therefore why  contemplate today about what will happen and when it will happen.
What are the factors that helped the earlier generation to still their anxieties and look forward to progress in years without a concern about the daily dosage of decline? My great grandmother with her experiential knowledge of masonry, was giving instructions to the mason to do some repair work in her kitchen before stretching herself on bed never to get up. She was full of life till the end. So was her husband whom she preceded, always on his easy chair with the newspaper that he would read through from the first alphabet to the last alphabet. He died reclining on the easy chair with the newspaper in hand. Not a flutter, not a ripple on the face; it was as though with absolute ease, the two moved into a new world. The foremost reason for such equanimity of temper was they were aware of a support system in the form of a joint family to take care of them in an emergency. Their homes never remained empty; they always had at least two or three people around and the fear of being alone was never there. Today old people go in search of assisted homes (which are few and far between) because there will be someone to assist when needed. In the present day nuclear families it is difficult to provide constant support to the elderly as the younger generation has necessarily to go out to earn their living and also enjoy the youthful phase of their lives. Unless one can afford to hire a full time nurse or a caregiver, the empty house causes unease and insecurity to the elderly. There are not many trained caregivers available in India.  Even geriatricians can be counted and this causes tension not just to the elders but to the young people who are caught between their professional commitments and youthful ambitions on the one hand and family responsibility on the other..
Yet another phenomenon of ageism relates to the newly superannuated groups whose parents are either octogenarians or nonagenarians. The post retirement life of this group in their 60s is no longer a time for them to indulge in a care free, leisurely life, enjoying the fruits of their 40 odd years of labour,  because they are the ones left at home to support their still older parents in their 80s and 90s.  A lot of tension and anger though tempered by their filial duty creates an unpleasant atmosphere at home.  In many cases, the wheel chair bound elderly people cause a lot of resentment to the new retirees and this is a new problem of ageism. In fact modern medical sciences have added decades to life, but as Linda Fried, Dean of Columbia University’s School of Public Health says,  “what we  have not done is take this immense success and turn into a victory for everybody”.
I list out four instances of how families have countered this problem of ageism. I start with two examples where I found the nonagenarian parents well looked after at home by their retired son and daughter. The remarkable thing is the nonagenarian couples of both husband and wife were parents to both of them. In other words, the son and the daughter played their roles by their parents and  their respective in-laws. They brought back the joint family system in a new way. All the four elders were in their late eighties and they lived a full life till the end. They were companions to each other enabling their son and daughter to freely visit their children living in US. I had seen four of them in good spirits, even after  the four got reduced to three and then two and then one and then none, but the spirit of living together gave them a dream life in their last years. This is a rare instance of two families living together.
 In the second instance a similar effort by the new retirees to take care of their mothers in their 90s with the help of hired assistants, has given the much needed comfort to the elders and freedom for their son and daughter to lead a life of their own. In both the cases, the fact that their own children, now in their 70s are around, has given the elderly parents comfort and security. While we all talk glibly about marriage between a man and a woman as the marriage of two families, in actual practice, this does not happen. Our custom and tradition allows only the son’s parents to be looked after which the daughter-in-law resents and the resentment gallops into hatred and deep rooted dislike of her husband’s parents. All family conflict starts from this point and the result is more and more divorces and greater alienation from the husband’s parents. The two illustrations show how companionship is possible to provide not with the younger generation but with one’s own peer group and that is possible with the coming together of two families.
The third instance is a reflection of our tradition where elderly people are given the highest respect and honour even if they are no longer actively participating in family affairs.  Even in her old age of 85+, the mother is looked upon as the patriarch of the family. She with her remarkable understanding of all religious functions gives instructions  on rituals, on books written in Telugu( her mother tongue), on cooking and even on observing economic prudence and these instructions are followed to the last letter by everyone in the family. The mother continues to be well taken care of by her two sons with active support from their spouses and children.  All the above three examples are pointers to possible solutions to the problem of ageism within the families. I do not think any of them ever thinks of Senior Citizens Homes or Assisted Homes not only for their parents, but for themselves also. The tradition of treating the elderly with respect runs through the families.
 But the majority of instances in India unfortunately border on mental cruelty and harshness towards the elderly people. The elders are seen to be a burden coming in the way of the daily routine-  even if thenext generation is  leading retired life . In India in many affluent families, the nonagenarians, who thanks to modern medicines are still mentally and physically active, are subjected to mental torture and indifference to the extent  they are forced to withdraw into their shell and gradually decline mentally and physically .The rapid rise in Alzheimer patients is not only due to loss of neurons that come with age, but also because of the cruel negligence the elderly are subjected to. If one is not allowed to participate in family affairs and share the day to day experience with the younger people, it leads to blankness which in course of time moves them out of the present to seek asylum in the past events. Very few people in their prime years take to reading, listening to music, involving themselves in social and cultural activities, enjoying life’s little pleasures… the result is they lose touch with the world around them. Maybe this is Nature’s way of helping the elderly to escape into an altogether different world, far from the present, where one is not wanted, leave aside needed. It is essential for everyone to cultivate the habit of reading or engagement of any kind with the mind such as doing cross word puzzles etc or listening to music, watching sports events etc. The latter is an excellent way ogf getting connected with the youth.
The fourth instance that I am about to mention is typical of many households today where the elderly are looked upon as a burden and who have  no value or use for anyone. The family that I shall refer to is a very well to do family, basically with good instincts, that has seen nothing but success in all matters-professional, financial and physical well being. Their success continues with their children who are also shaping well in all respects. The mother now in her 90s is mentally strong and tough, physically in fairly good shape except for  the age old decline making her slow in movements and physical activities. Good memory, strong speech, fairly alive to all happenings but a little irritable because she does not enjoy the status that her age demands. She had been running her home single handedly with the help of a maid for a good number of years, almost for six decades. But of late, she began to feel the need for a fulltime maid to assist her so that her home continues to be an efficiently run home. Being a little imperious, it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to get a helper to her satisfaction and the demand on her children to provide assistance,  companionship, support and respect was too much for her three children who are all into their late 60s and early 70s. Instead of giving her a little space in their well organized homes with drivers and servants, they felt that she needed only an assisted home service. They all live in spacious apartments , but did not want to keep their mother because she was getting more and more dependent, demanding constant companionship and attention. She wanted to sit with them, eat with them, talk to them about the  past glorious days she had with her high placed husband etc, but if it had been one day affair, her children would have displayed all their filial warmth and gratitude to their mother. But when they realized it would be a prolonged affair till she decided to cry halt, they began to resent her presence. They felt that they could not have evenings to themselves, go to theatres, watch movies at home in quietude and solitary splendor. The mother fixation drove them insane and they gradually worked on her mind to accept assisted home service as the best option. Well, she is now in one of the assisted homes and the son who had added to his own wealth the bountiful inheritance from the mother is ready to meet all the expenditure on the old lady at the assisted home, far away from where he lives amongst the well heeled. They tell everyone that was the best arrangement as the mother wanted and that she is presently very happy as she is well cared for by nurses and servants. She told me that she was made to feel that she was in some ways crippling the freedom of her children and that she was  asked voluntarily to follow our age old tradition of ‘vanaprastha’ and settle in an assisted home. She said she had no complaints as she was well looked after and she only had one question: Is this what one bargained for by living her entire life for the family? The missing quotient was the emotional quotient.
I was reminded of the lines from Yeats’ poem ‘Among School Children’. This poem was composed after his visit to a convent school in his 60th year. Looking at one of the girls he was reminded of his beloved whom he now sees as an old lady with hollow cheeks and decrepit looks like an old scarecrow, as though she subsisted on the wind and the shadows in place of  water and solid food. No one can prevent ageing. He writes
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
…………………………………………………………………….
Would think her son, did she but see that shape,
With sixty or more winters on its head
A compensation for the pang of his birth
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

He wonders what the mother would have thought had she been able to see how her son who was in her lap had turned out to be. Would she have regarded him as adequate compensation for the pains of childbirth and all the inconveniences of bringing him up?. Yeats leaves the question unanswered.

Are we ready to face the grey Tsunami? Do we have to barricade ourselves against it as we do in the case of natural tsunami or do we remove all the barricades  to embrace the grey population with  gratitude and affection?. Like Yeats, I leave the question unanswered.


                                                                       The Grey Tsunami
India and the world in general have been hit by a ‘grey tsunami’, thanks to better healthcare and advanced medical technology. It is estimated that in the next three decades, globally the number of senior citizens will triple to 1.5 billion while in India it will be 0.3 billion i.e.,300 million. When even United States feels that it is unprepared to take care of its present 45 million people above the age of 65 and which is estimated to grow into 86 million by 2050, we can surmise how we can provide for our own men and women in their grey years. The latest news from the world of science is both awesome and terrifying as it relates to Computer scientists and AI (Artificial Intelligence) specialists  working on new programmes that will open the door to near everlasting life and usher in immortality. The research on ‘disrupting death’ has been successful on preserving an animal’s brain’s neural maps and it is now looking at the possibility of extending the technique to human brains. I am not going into the ethical and philosophical questions on this issue, but what is being mooted and what is currently attempted is continuity of life through digitization of neural circuits to enable the most cerebral human being to live in virtual reality. Grey Tsunami may become a virtual reality as much as it is a physical reality today.
I come from a family where on my maternal side, almost everyone had either touched or crossed 90 before they bade goodbye to the world. What was noteworthy was all of them had no physical or mental infirmity even in their ripe old age. It will not be wrong to say that they must have decided to call it a day because they wanted to start afresh as there was nothing more left for them to do in their present state. It may sound incredible, but the truth is they all died without regret, regretted by those they had left behind. 
I am now in my second half of my seventh decade. Though the maternal genes seem to be holding me well, modern life with all its stresses and tensions (mostly created by one’s own anxieties) fills me (and I am suremany others in my age group) with unknown fears about the coming decades, though philosophically I try to strengthen myself  with the thought that mental and physical decline are the inevitabilities of life before it comes to a full stop and therefore why  contemplate today about what will happen and when it will happen.
What are the factors that helped the earlier generation to still their anxieties and look forward to progress in years without a concern about the daily dosage of decline? My great grandmother with her experiential knowledge of masonry, was giving instructions to the mason to do some repair work in her kitchen before stretching herself on bed never to get up. She was full of life till the end. So was her husband whom she preceded, always on his easy chair with the newspaper that he would read through from the first alphabet to the last alphabet. He died reclining on the easy chair with the newspaper in hand. Not a flutter, not a ripple on the face; it was as though with absolute ease, the two moved into a new world. The foremost reason for such equanimity of temper was they were aware of a support system in the form of a joint family to take care of them in an emergency. Their homes never remained empty; they always had at least two or three people around and the fear of being alone was never there. Today old people go in search of assisted homes (which are few and far between) because there will be someone to assist when needed. In the present day nuclear families it is difficult to provide constant support to the elderly as the younger generation has necessarily to go out to earn their living and also enjoy the youthful phase of their lives. Unless one can afford to hire a full time nurse or a caregiver, the empty house causes unease and insecurity to the elderly. There are not many trained caregivers available in India.  Even geriatricians can be counted and this causes tension not just to the elders but to the young people who are caught between their professional commitments and youthful ambitions on the one hand and family responsibility on the other..
Yet another phenomenon of ageism relates to the newly superannuated groups whose parents are either octogenarians or nonagenarians. The post retirement life of this group in their 60s is no longer a time for them to indulge in a care free, leisurely life, enjoying the fruits of their 40 odd years of labour,  because they are the ones left at home to support their still older parents in their 80s and 90s.  A lot of tension and anger though tempered by their filial duty creates an unpleasant atmosphere at home.  In many cases, the wheel chair bound elderly people cause a lot of resentment to the new retirees and this is a new problem of ageism. In fact modern medical sciences have added decades to life, but as Linda Fried, Dean of Columbia University’s School of Public Health says,  “what we  have not done is take this immense success and turn into a victory for everybody”.
I list out four instances of how families have countered this problem of ageism. I start with two examples where I found the nonagenarian parents well looked after at home by their retired son and daughter. The remarkable thing is the nonagenarian couples of both husband and wife were parents to both of them. In other words, the son and the daughter played their roles by their parents and  their respective in-laws. They brought back the joint family system in a new way. All the four elders were in their late eighties and they lived a full life till the end. They were companions to each other enabling their son and daughter to freely visit their children living in US. I had seen four of them in good spirits, even after  the four got reduced to three and then two and then one and then none, but the spirit of living together gave them a dream life in their last years. This is a rare instance of two families living together.
 In the second instance a similar effort by the new retirees to take care of their mothers in their 90s with the help of hired assistants, has given the much needed comfort to the elders and freedom for their son and daughter to lead a life of their own. In both the cases, the fact that their own children, now in their 70s are around, has given the elderly parents comfort and security. While we all talk glibly about marriage between a man and a woman as the marriage of two families, in actual practice, this does not happen. Our custom and tradition allows only the son’s parents to be looked after which the daughter-in-law resents and the resentment gallops into hatred and deep rooted dislike of her husband’s parents. All family conflict starts from this point and the result is more and more divorces and greater alienation from the husband’s parents. The two illustrations show how companionship is possible to provide not with the younger generation but with one’s own peer group and that is possible with the coming together of two families.
The third instance is a reflection of our tradition where elderly people are given the highest respect and honour even if they are no longer actively participating in family affairs.  Even in her old age of 85+, the mother is looked upon as the patriarch of the family. She with her remarkable understanding of all religious functions gives instructions  on rituals, on books written in Telugu( her mother tongue), on cooking and even on observing economic prudence and these instructions are followed to the last letter by everyone in the family. The mother continues to be well taken care of by her two sons with active support from their spouses and children.  All the above three examples are pointers to possible solutions to the problem of ageism within the families. I do not think any of them ever thinks of Senior Citizens Homes or Assisted Homes not only for their parents, but for themselves also. The tradition of treating the elderly with respect runs through the families.
 But the majority of instances in India unfortunately border on mental cruelty and harshness towards the elderly people. The elders are seen to be a burden coming in the way of the daily routine-  even if thenext generation is  leading retired life . In India in many affluent families, the nonagenarians, who thanks to modern medicines are still mentally and physically active, are subjected to mental torture and indifference to the extent  they are forced to withdraw into their shell and gradually decline mentally and physically .The rapid rise in Alzheimer patients is not only due to loss of neurons that come with age, but also because of the cruel negligence the elderly are subjected to. If one is not allowed to participate in family affairs and share the day to day experience with the younger people, it leads to blankness which in course of time moves them out of the present to seek asylum in the past events. Very few people in their prime years take to reading, listening to music, involving themselves in social and cultural activities, enjoying life’s little pleasures… the result is they lose touch with the world around them. Maybe this is Nature’s way of helping the elderly to escape into an altogether different world, far from the present, where one is not wanted, leave aside needed. It is essential for everyone to cultivate the habit of reading or engagement of any kind with the mind such as doing cross word puzzles etc or listening to music, watching sports events etc. The latter is an excellent way ogf getting connected with the youth.
The fourth instance that I am about to mention is typical of many households today where the elderly are looked upon as a burden and who have  no value or use for anyone. The family that I shall refer to is a very well to do family, basically with good instincts, that has seen nothing but success in all matters-professional, financial and physical well being. Their success continues with their children who are also shaping well in all respects. The mother now in her 90s is mentally strong and tough, physically in fairly good shape except for  the age old decline making her slow in movements and physical activities. Good memory, strong speech, fairly alive to all happenings but a little irritable because she does not enjoy the status that her age demands. She had been running her home single handedly with the help of a maid for a good number of years, almost for six decades. But of late, she began to feel the need for a fulltime maid to assist her so that her home continues to be an efficiently run home. Being a little imperious, it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to get a helper to her satisfaction and the demand on her children to provide assistance,  companionship, support and respect was too much for her three children who are all into their late 60s and early 70s. Instead of giving her a little space in their well organized homes with drivers and servants, they felt that she needed only an assisted home service. They all live in spacious apartments , but did not want to keep their mother because she was getting more and more dependent, demanding constant companionship and attention. She wanted to sit with them, eat with them, talk to them about the  past glorious days she had with her high placed husband etc, but if it had been one day affair, her children would have displayed all their filial warmth and gratitude to their mother. But when they realized it would be a prolonged affair till she decided to cry halt, they began to resent her presence. They felt that they could not have evenings to themselves, go to theatres, watch movies at home in quietude and solitary splendor. The mother fixation drove them insane and they gradually worked on her mind to accept assisted home service as the best option. Well, she is now in one of the assisted homes and the son who had added to his own wealth the bountiful inheritance from the mother is ready to meet all the expenditure on the old lady at the assisted home, far away from where he lives amongst the well heeled. They tell everyone that was the best arrangement as the mother wanted and that she is presently very happy as she is well cared for by nurses and servants. She told me that she was made to feel that she was in some ways crippling the freedom of her children and that she was  asked voluntarily to follow our age old tradition of ‘vanaprastha’ and settle in an assisted home. She said she had no complaints as she was well looked after and she only had one question: Is this what one bargained for by living her entire life for the family? The missing quotient was the emotional quotient.
I was reminded of the lines from Yeats’ poem ‘Among School Children’. This poem was composed after his visit to a convent school in his 60th year. Looking at one of the girls he was reminded of his beloved whom he now sees as an old lady with hollow cheeks and decrepit looks like an old scarecrow, as though she subsisted on the wind and the shadows in place of  water and solid food. No one can prevent ageing. He writes
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
…………………………………………………………………….
Would think her son, did she but see that shape,
With sixty or more winters on its head
A compensation for the pang of his birth
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

He wonders what the mother would have thought had she been able to see how her son who was in her lap had turned out to be. Would she have regarded him as adequate compensation for the pains of childbirth and all the inconveniences of bringing him up?. Yeats leaves the question unanswered.

Are we ready to face the grey Tsunami? Do we have to barricade ourselves against it as we do in the case of natural tsunami or do we remove all the barricades  to embrace the grey population with  gratitude and affection?. Like Yeats, I leave the question unanswered.


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