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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