Old age and loneliness – a quiet tragedy of our times
I have been thinking of my mother quite a lot the past few weeks, as we approach two years since she left us. Mother enjoyed having people around her, she loved the personal touch – not surprising since she belonged to a generation that thrived on one-to-one interactions and landline calls. She would call her siblings, nephews and nieces, and friends till well past 80 even after several falls she had those years. Until one day, a fall tore her life apart – not immediately but in stages over the succeeding years. She had to use the walker and take help to move around and, though she still believed that she could overcome the odds at close to 90 and be the person she was, that never happened. When has life been so kind? Eventually, Mother realised that the old times would never return. Mobility is something she craved, but now she had to depend on assistance to move from room to room. Her outings from her bedroom were restricted to the drawing room and the puja space. No longer c...
