The land’s people at large revel themselves in identifying themselves first and others next by using a plethora of faiths, creeds, castes, lingo, region and what have you. Mercifully, the seniors in all these diverse and time-honoured classes earn their distinct identity by just one factor, the factor of age. Being portrayed as seniors, read oldies, based on their tough-to-hide features such as wrinkled skin, bald pate, unsteady walk, toothless oral cavity, poor vision, hearing loss, illnesses betraying age and so on is another matter. Given the officially declared rise of longevity in the country’s bulging population, the presence of seniors in the total headcount has just crossed the mark of ten per cent, the actual number exceeding 130 million. Dependency on their kin to lead a reasonably comfortable life, subject to the aforementioned various handicaps, altered status in society, economic self-reliance and the sense of wellness in both mental and physical terms bug the seniors in as many ways and to as much extent as they went through life’s pre-senior years and their means of livelihood in a long list ranging from beggary to babudom.
Engaging oneself in life during the course from youth to senior stage in different activities and addressing challenges that create inhospitable circumstances have been spelt out by the country’s luminaries of a distant past that come in handy to seniors who cannot put the clock back by not complying with the failsafe ground rules of life. But, there are not many takers.
