Ignored by kids, they find it tough to come to terms with their plight

Ignored by kids, they find it tough to come to terms with their plight  Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Jammu, October 1
International Day of Older Persons is a special day for older persons or senior citizens all over the world who have been disowned by their children. Here in the Home for Aged and Infirm persons at Ved Mandir in Ambphalla, all inmates have more or less a similar tale to narrate.
With wrinkled faces, inmates here say: “Paisa aata jaata rehta hai, magar maa-baap phir nahi milte (money comes and goes, but they will not get their parents again).”
“But who can understand our plight when our own family members have disowned us?” asks Ram Rakhi, an octogenarian and a native of Khour village who has two married daughters in Patiala.
Ram Rakhi has been living in the home for aged after the death of her husband for the past one and a half years. “My daughters are well-settled, but they don’t have time for me. They have never visited me here. Once I went to meet them, but they even cheated me of Rs 14,000 (my total savings) and then a neighbour brought me here as I was unable to live alone in the village house. I have lost the battle of life,” says Ram Rakhi with moist eyes.
Besides Ram Rakhi, there are a number of people who have been braving odds at the twilight of their lives.
Ninetyone-year-old Sai Dass of Sajjadpur village in Marh Block, whose only son had disowned him about seven years ago, has now started living here happily. He said: I had four kanals of agricultural land, but my son told me that he had nothing to feed me. It is a better option to die at some place where no one knows your background than living a pitiful life at your house.”
“Till the time I was working, my son had no problem with me. But when I became a burden, he disowned me. The greed of money has made him blind. Maybe one day, he will realise the fact, but by that time I would have left this world,” said Sai Dass,
his voice shaking with emotions.
Meanwhile, a few inmates were taken to the Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bantalab, which had organised a special cultural programme for old persons. 

Inmates of an old-age home sit in its lobby on International Day of Older Persons in Jammu on Saturday. A Tribune photograph