The golden age

The ripen grapes excrete sweet sap naturally which cannot be controlled. It is excellent in taste but cannot be preserved for long time. Our old people are just like these grapes laden with great experiences of life but their company is not long lasting. Their conversation and wisdom between the lines act as a lighthouse but we have no time to sit and heed upon their thoughts. We, without listening and knowing, give a notion of rejection, labeling them the old-fashioned thoughts. By God, they are the live histories, eyewitnesses of great changes of world, an important part of past, and having great insight in them. Unfortunately, we cannot keep this treasure in our possession for long, because they are drawing near their destination by every passing moment.

They are just like a fountain sprinkling their past memories and always wish to wet their listener. They had spent a vigorous and adventurous life as we are currently leading. They have gone through the experience as we are trying to undergo. We can learn more from them but we cannot help the exploring nature of man who wants to do everything by himself whether he gains profit or loss. They are a great source of blessing for us if we value them, they are experienced guides if we admit them and they are unending treasure if we find them. What we are now, owe to their sacrifices.  This age is called old age, but must be named as the golden age.

In the western society, where family system is collapsing, the old people are not warmly cared rather considered an unpleasant load, which badly affects their personal lives.  The boundless personal liberties give way to the negligence of their parents. When they are unable to do worthwhile, they are shifted to the old homes. Their sons and daughter never visit them even on Christmas days. The solitude, disappointment, ailment and the fruitless wait of their children become the part of their life. They shed tears in loneliness, but they are bound to suffer what they had done with their own parents.

In eastern society, the things are not so bad but a stir of uneasiness about old relatives is going beneath the surface. No doubt, the people of East have their concrete traditions about their parents and other old relatives. Sometimes the old people have authoritative role in settling their family affairs and are paid great respect by their children. However, it is a bitter reality that in some families the plight of old parents is very miserable. They are not properly cared and looked after. When their children get married, their decline starts. The bed of the old father is shifted to drawing room at first step, then to garage, and ultimately it is shifted to upstairs. This shows a deep-rooted hypocrisy of eastern society. The children are not willing to keep their parents with them but they are afraid of society and their kith and kin. They have to show of paying great respect and love to their old people.

These old fellows if luckily are retired government servants or landlords or they had made a handsome property during their struggle in life and if they had not distributed their property among their offsprings, enjoy a peaceful life. They are properly cared and looked after, if they fell ill, they are rushed to hospitals and well reputed doctors because all the expenditures of their medication are born by them. However, the people who spent all their life in educating their children and engaged themselves to meet the necessities of their family and were unable to collect a heap of money sometimes suffer in their old age. Their sons commonly avoid looking them after properly. The well-known saying that seven sons cannot look after their father but a father can look after the seven sons comes true in its real sense. Old parents commonly live with the youngest or the eldest son. The other sons consider that all the responsibility lies on the shoulders of those with whom the parents live. They never pay heed to their parents. This tendency is alarming for the eastern society, which has deep-rooted traditions of well serving their old relatives.

The parents’ favoritism also increases their difficulties in their old age. It is observed that the parents living with eldest son show their great affection to the children of the youngest son. This always creates irritation in the mind of eldest daughter-in-law.  This imbalance in behavior on the part of the parents is not correct but must be tolerated. They never hate the children of the eldest son but have natural inclinations to the offsprings of the youngest son, which cannot be helped.

S.T Coleridge is of the view in his well-known poem “Youth and Age” that old age is nothing but when a man loses, his hope he does not participate in life actively becomes old. Hope for better future and for better change is the real strength of man on the rough and thorny path of life. If our seniors do not lose hope in the light of Coleridge’s point of view, they can make their old age the real gold age. The ripen grapes excrete sweet sap naturally which cannot be controlled. They are excellent in taste but cannot be preserved for long time.