Valentine’ day

March 01, 2009 , 6 Comments

A lot of my friend and colleagues naughtily probed me on my plans for celebrating the V day this year. I was amused by their stereotyped approach and smirked back to my MS excel sheets. I resisted saying “no plans” like I did all these years. Cause this year, I certainly had a plan.

ClichĂ© it may sound but this valentine day I, along with some office colleagues visited “Ma Kali Vridhashram” – a home of elderly and aged. The experience was mixed.

We had fun while buying cake for them. From pastries to muffins, we finally closed the deal on a “Tom & Jerry” cake. Cute na? It was Rohita’ idea, backed by Rana, who was amused by the time taken to purchase that simple confectionary. Guess he ran out of his cell phone charge and realized world happening around him [Hope Rana is reading this]

We had fun locating the place. Apparently, the landmark given over phone was “Pukur” [lake in Bengali], which I heard as “Kukur” [dog in Bengali] and whole through the lanes of peerless hospital I kept on wondering what living soul would give a landmark as the “house near Kukur” or vice versa. lolz. But there has been incidences like this. Surprisingly enough there were lots of pukur and kukur around!!! And even the team couldn’t realize my “comedy of errors” until I told them for the second time.

But it wasn’t actually a great fun to visit the place, to see the faces almost devoid of life, searching for some signs of it desperately. Small, restricted place and not exactly the right place I would like to see any of my loved relatives spending the last legions of their life. I understand they are old, helpless and some of them even disowned by their families but none of them seem so unworthy to be living in such isolation, such brevity.

Isn’t it strange that we have swish-plush malls, plazas and what not? But no construction half as grand to accommodate the helpless “old age”. No construction half as considerate, no construction half as accommodating, half as useful. All stones in concrete jungle but no shelter.

A place where the old age can freely move around, indulge, savor all the bits of this everlasting life. There might be some posh homes as this but I wonder how many? And how affordable?

Well too many questions and too much of helplessness too. In all my bare capacities, I won’t let my parents be on mercy of anyone else. I keep reinstating this to Anurag as well, who in turns keep threatening to keep parents with him and not me. Wishful thinking, little bro, for sis is here to stay :)

Well the rest of my day wasn’t too amusing except I learnt some trick with the stone on the lake water. My colleagues- Rana, CV and Raj, demonstrated the great, lost art of splashing pebbles in lake and make it dance on water…I couldn’t make it dance so well but well tried!!!

I had a long drive back home. Traffic and guess what? Rest of my evening was spent buying groceries. Thankfully, my cook came and made me some nice dinner. It made me realize that no matter the small or confined spaces, thankfully those old people at least have someone around to spend their time with and eat their meal together.

Hey they are playing one of my fav song- “Hum Tum”. Cheers.

The autor is half Human, half machine. Go Figure or just revel in what I write

6 comments:

  1. Nice to know that u went to that place and that even on V Day !
    Great!

    Even i went to Old age home --
    "Jeevan Asha" in Andheri. we choosed this trip as our softskill project in MBA.
    But as you said face of people was very dull with no emotions initially.

    Even i came to know that they some time fight with each other.

    We also brought some confectionary and sweet for them but one Nun told us that -- These ppl are old and they can not eat sweets and cake, because many are on medication.

    well than we gave them some fruits.

    it was my first experience at this place--- and feeling was like -- that cannot be expresed in words. I was sad, happy and with no reaction(Simultaneous feelings), when i was leaving.

    But one old man told me that--" yaha par kaun kab jayega pata nahi, log TV dekhte dekte he upar chale jate hai ya sote hai phir agle din nahi uthte...kuch ke sath mercy killing bhi hoti hai"


    This seems to be truth- That i found there.

    Very heart breaking!

    Its gud that even being a young u got the time to visit them.
    Good work!

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  2. Hi Akash

    Thanks for sharing insights of your trip with me. Yeah i fully agree on the sweet part, even we too were concerned about that hence tried to choose something suitable. But then ppl in Bengal has got a very sweet tooth, so you know we thought one slice of cake only :-)

    The one we visited was quite small and i could not get into intrinsic details...but kudos to you too. For having spare sometime for ppl at jeevan asha.

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  3. Ekta !! Great work done...You are right, sometimes we need to step back and look at things beyond work. You made me realise that it has been ages since I did something like this or paid a visit to madir...Lately life had been so hectic that I don't have time for anything other than work. Even I have stopped blogging which was close to my heart..

    I really loved the 'pukur' and 'kukkur' ka misunderstanding..that was so much of fun..

    Keep up Diva !!

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  4. Hey Amit,

    Thanks a ton for your lovely comments..yeah could not see much of you in blogging front...though you wud be busy reading.

    yeah the CSR was good...you must have got the HR sprinkler mail...even i feature in a pic :-)

    Off late corp is visiting a lot of places like this...keep on reading sprinklers..hee hee

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  5. O really !! I saw the sprinkles but could not figure out you. I really wanted to be part of that CSR thing but could not make it. Tough luck !! I need to step back yaar !!

    Whatever sprinkles we get is only from circles !! Corporate is not creating any sprinles...Hum toh EBIDTA ko sambhaalne mein hi lagge rahte hein..hamari takdir circle walo ki tarah kahan...

    On a serious note, great effort yaar !! Keep it up.

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  6. Hum-Tum?

    Saw the snippets of sa re ga ma kids champion on zee other day...What a mockery they have done for hum-tum.

    BTW i can see you are getting too much in CSR these days? All' well?

    take care

    ReplyDelete

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