Page 44 - Seniorstoday July 2024 Issue

is in no position to have his parents over,
for several reasons. But at the same time,
he desires to make his geriatric parents’
lonely living as comfortable as possible,
given his means. Another person getting on
in her age and becoming increasingly unfit,
is in no position to take care of her elderly
mother and a dependent child. She has
been forced to move her mother to an NGO
helping with assisted living at reasonable
costs.
The general pressures and pursuits of
living, the breakdown of joint families,
migrations for jobs and livelihoods, rising
costs of accommodations, expensive
medical treatments, low incomes and poor
savings, the increasing ‘I, me, myself’
attitudes and many more reasons have
brought about an inevitability of assisted
living, especially in the case of several
urban families. There is a mushrooming
of realty developers rushing in to provide
this assisted living facility in several cities
across the country, from the hills to the
plains, from the coasts to the interiors,
promising the moon and end-to-end elder
care. Essentially, they project a beguilingly
comforting presence of heaven on earth, no
different from a typically alluring hospital
ad as though people look forward to being
in hospitals. But then, like so many other
things in life, there are pros and cons of
shifting to assisted living and would differ
from case to case.
GoldenEstate, New Delhi
44
If I were to coin an expression in this
context, all of us to a greater or a lesser
extent, live in constant FoD, FoE and FoF –
Fear of Dependency, Fear of End and Fear
of Future. It is compounded by the fact that
many of us have a misconceived notion
of ‘I do not want to be a burden on my
children’. At one level it is unfair and being
presumptuous about our progeny and at
another level we could have a heightened
opinion of our own independence and sense
of right and wrong. Yes, there are several
cases of cruelty towards parents, desertion
of parents, remaining incommunicado
with parents and other forms of inhuman
behaviours which may force a shift to old
age homes. But they are exceptions, not the
norm fortunately.
Circling back to where I started from,
of high stock indices and old age, there
indeed is an opportunity of great returns
in investing in companies providing elder
care and assisted living. They do provide
essential services for the aged. But the joy
will be greater the day one realises that
the brick and mortar of old age homes is a
temporary salve and incomparable to the
lasting solace of the heart and emotion of
kinship. After all, our last mile journey,
with all its joy and sorrow, does require
four pairs of arms. The rainbow looks
attractive, but there never is a pot of gold at
its end.