“There is no end in a circle of life”
It does feel wrong, most of the times, when you witness ill-treatment of an elder person and you are ashamed of yourself for the simple reason like – you cannot help the person.
This is a true story involving a retired professor and his ugly off springs.
I accompanied my neighbour to visit their relative, who was hospitalised for complications of diabetes. His toe was amputated and in past 12 months he had managed to lose 5 digits. Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma or surgery. In this case it was a surgery and as a surgical measure, it was carried out to ease the pain and the disease process in the affected limb, gangrene.
None of his family members were supportive and I suppose they were fed up of having to take care of this elder person.
I wondered what that person must have thought when he got married to that lady who refused to stand by his side during the recovery period and instead chose to stay with her elder son at Pune. It’s funny when I come across the line “I will stand by your side through thick and thin”, I hope I got that right but after 60 yrs of marriage life, who on earth would have expected his wife to treat him like a “door mat” and his sons to treat him like a “donkey” who carries all the burden and is less rewarded for its kind action.
This gentleman was a professor in an esteemed government university. Right from the beginning he got it all wrong about his life. He had lost everything in life and most importantly his self respect a long time ago. He was just a mere lifeless person whose soul was ripped out by his beloved wife and his hideous off springs. He was treated so bad that in spite of holding a respectable place in the society, he managed to be treated like a joke by every single person.
His income was directly siphoned from his account by his immediate family and he was given nothing for himself. This old man, worked very hard day in and day out. Well, I can think of a similarity with parasite and host relationship and I am certain that I am not wrong - he was reduced to nothing. His plight was so pathetic that in his “good old days” he used to beg his peon to get him a cup of tea as he used to skip his lunch. Well, skipping lunch wasn’t a voluntary action. He was denied of his lunch box because his wife used to wake up late and had taken least interest in his health.
There were occasions where, he used to go to his neighbours and relatives houses, so that he can have a meal without having to pay for it.
It is a pity that a college professor had to go through such ordeal, in spite of working hard and earning his income by doing something very sacred – imparting knowledge. It seems they had a pet at his house and the dog was treated well. The dog got its timey food and great care was given to the dog. How could his family members, spend money on a pet but not on their father who was a professor and worked hard his entire life to raise three sons, who happen to be well off now considering the fact that all of his sons have got a decent house on their own at Bangalore and got cars for their conveyance.
Even in our Hindu culture we place our Gurus, before the almighty but why didn’t his wife treat him with respect and why did he fail to earn his sons respect?
It was shocking to hear that, after his retirement, he gave all earnings to his sons and wife and he kept nothing for himself. He was as it is, treated like a street dog and after his retirement he was pushed to an extent where he had to work in various places to earn his living. His pension money was religiously taken away from him but he continued to work and he never minded doing menial jobs even after serving as a professor for a long time and the “parasites” kept multiplying.
I looked into his eyes and I realised that the man was hollow. I honestly felt that I was looking into the eyes of a person who’s got no desires to live. I was immediately taken over by the strangest feeling I ever had, it was a complete blank, absolutely nothing, and a person was a hopeless soul, rather soulless person who once cared for his family and probably himself. He did look disturbed and he expressed his far relatives- my neighbour, that he expects a peaceful death.
He was discharged from the hospital and was advised not to stand on his own and never to walk again. He had no one to take care of him as his family refused to take care of him.
He left his house on his own and stayed at a lodge for a day or so and came to visit his relatives who live far away. When, he learnt that his relatives weren’t at home because they had gone to attend a funeral, he decided to return to his house. Around this time, he was in enormous pain and he insisted that he visits his relative and for some reasons he disliked staying with his family. Well, family is a wonderful thing, all of us are taught at our kindergarten that family is where parents and children live and it will be dishonouring him, if any one says that it’s wrong for him to walk out of his family, something which he should have done it long time ago.
When he finally reached his relatives house, they found him in a miserable condition and immediately phoned his family about his situation. His relatives were kind enough to arrange a cab for him instead of sending him on a bus as advised by his family members. On his way back he died in the car. The driver finally reached his house and was shocked to know that his sons refused to take the body inside the house for his last rites. The driver, with the help of a stranger took the body inside the house and spent most horrifying time of his life. There was no one to cry, his family members returned to do whatever they were doing in spite of having the head of the family lying dead in their courtyard. The driver, explained the relatives of the situation at the house and he confessed that it was an excruciating experience in his life.
It is considered a sin not to perform the last rites for the dead person in our Hindu culture and I consider as a crime not to take care of your own father or husband after all his hard work. It is a painful thing to blog this incident because I met this old man three weeks ago and he died last week. Some say that, this is the best thing that could happen to this man and I say that everything is futile in life if you die because you have nothing else to do.
I wish the man rests in peace. I am aware that am being very optimistic but if he doesn’t rest in peace at least he should haunt his family.
“There is no end in a circle of life”
