Page 36 - seniors today August issue

First Person
The taste of green peas
When children forget how to love and care for their elders, what does one do?
By Vickram Sethi
A true story from the 1960s. Two friends, Arun
and Jagat, lived in Delhi around Rajendra
Nagar. Arun was a civil engineer attached to the
central government, and his wife Shakuntala
was a successful gynaecologist. Jagat was a
chemical engineer, and his wife Kamala was a
homemaker.
Shakuntala had inherited a flourishing practice
from her parents, who were doctors as well.
Slowly her practice grew,and she became a
gynaecologist in great demand around Patel
Nagar and Rajendra Nagar areas. She kept
herself abreast of the latest technology and
helped couples in conception. As the practice
grew, she had two assistant women doctors
whom she trained and ran a small hospital with
10 rooms. Arun in the meantime, retired and
helped in the administration of the hospital.
Arun had two sons. As life went by the boys
grew up, and Arun bought two plots of land
600 sq yards each in the new upcoming
colonies of New Delhi. With Jagat’s help, he built
four-bedroom houses with a lawn for each of
them. The boys got married and had children of
their own. Jagat had three children, two boys,
and a girl. Both his boys worked for the Indian
railways, and his daughter was married at an
appropriate time.
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Shakuntala had decided that she would retire
at sixty, and both husband and wife would go
around the world on, as most Punjabis say it,
a “world tour.” It wasn’t easy to shut down her
hospital, but slowly, she reduced the number
of patients and passed them on to her two
assistants. Somewhere she fell ill and as a
doctor she knew that something was not correct
in her body. After various tests and X-rays,
she discovered that she had cancer, and from
that day, she shut her practice and moved to
Mumbai (Bombay) to the Tata Hospital. One of
Jagat’s sons was posted in Mumbai (Bombay)
Arun and his wife stayed with him. Shakuntala
realised that the cancer was not curable and
the doctors gave her six months. She convinced
Arun that whatever time was left for her, they
would spend it in Delhi in their own home at
Rajendra Nagar. It was a slow and painful end,
but morphine eased the pain.
Once all the rituals of death were over, Arun
decided to sell the Rajendra Nagar house and
move in with his boys. Arun and his wife had
spent a considerable part of their savings on
constructing and furnishing the houses for the
boys. He planned to transfer the sale proceeds
to the boys so that after his death his children
would not have to pay estate duty. Shakuntala
had a large holding of gold from her parents.
Arun received a central government pension
which he reasoned was enough for him, his
medicines and his club expenses. He held back
the gold. Jagat was dead against this move and
reasoned with Arun that after his death the
estate duty payment should not bother him
since it would come out from the sale proceeds
of the house. Besides Arun had given his
children enough and an estate duty payment
would not be such a big deal. However, Arun
felt this was a selfish view, and he would be
happy living with both his boys six months at a
time.
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