By Narayan Prasad Mishra
In the cycle of birth and death, we are bound to be old if we do not die before in some way. The old age, this period is undoubtedly very much different from other times. When you are a baby, child, or young, you have, in general, all the family members with you – father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, husband, wife, friends, etc. You have your energy and strength. You have the aims, ambitions, varieties of wish and desires. You have work, responsibilities, and duties. All of these things fully occupy you. You move around them and have no time and attention to think beyond.
Senior citizens in Nepal
After some decades, indeed, the time comes when you and your life is totally different from the situation described above. Now the hair turns grey, and lots of wrinkles appear, you are old, weak, feeble, sick, and challenging to move from one place to another. You have no charm for beauty, no lust for food, no pleasure in sightseeing, and no enjoyment in music and movie. You have no courage, desire, and wish to change the family, society, country. You have no hope to do anything for the betterment of this globe. You have lost most of your family members – parent, husband, wife, brothers, sisters, uncle, aunts, etc., and of course the friends. You do not have anyone around who loves you. You cry with grief and pain and shed tons of tears, but you do not have anyone to share with. You are bound to show yourself sympathy and pity.
In some cases, you are poor and not well enough for a living – housing, food, medicine, care, etc. Sometimes you may even hate to live and want to disappear forever without delay, but you have to live by compulsion as death is not in your hand. You cannot have euthanasia. Think and imagine how life would be.
In Nepal, in our society, the older people live with family – sons, and daughters-in-law, grandchildren as we have joint family, the extended family system in the country. In each locality in the city, like three cities of Kathmandu Valley – Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Patan, and other towns and villages like Kirtipur, Panga, Satungal, Thecho, Khokhana, we see paties (sitting and resting place, shade,) where old and young sit and chat and can have some company in some way. That is a sound system indeed. That makes ease in that difficult time.
Traditionally Nepalis live in the same house, locality, or city from generation to generation. They have no moving culture like Americans. When I was in the USA in 1970 under the International Visitor Program, I heard from a speaker who came to speak to acquaint us with the American life and culture at International Hospitality Centre in Washington D.C.that American consider life is unsuccessful when not moving and settling another city, the place different from the site where one is born and grew. Here the culture is different. We do not like to move to another town far from where you are born and grew up. That is the way you can live with your family. That is the way we can take care of your parent or seniors. That is the way you can always be together with your local friends and neighbors. That is the way you have no problem thinking about the care of your kids. That is the system you need not think of buying or acquiring land for housing. That is possible because your work, job, or business is in the same place.
Now, that system is disappearing in our country also. You often need to move to another place or city due to your job or business as you do not have the same opportunity where you live. Then naturally, you are bound to have a house or shelter in the place where you need to stay. Because of that, even wishing or wanting you cannot live together with your extended family. Simultaneously, the people of a new generation, mostly educated people, are influenced and attracted to the European or American independent family system – husband, wife, and siblings, forgetting towards the love, affection to the seniors and the advantage of the traditional comprehensive family system. So, our regular system is gradually breaking. We are now facing many new challenges – parents and older people care, kids care, ancestral property care, etc.
We know in Europe and America there are some suitable or essential arrangements to their system. When they think they cannot take care of themselves and cannot live with their sons and daughters, older people live in the nursing homes made for the seniors. Their economy is high. They can easily afford to live to get all the facilities – food, shelter, nursing, health, play, game swimming, travel, church, yoga, meditation, etc., with excellent physical facilities and good care, and the right environment. Similarly, they have daycare centers for children where you put your kids when you go to work. Whereas in our country, neither we have that economy nor arrangement. So, losing our culture, tradition, love, and unity, we are in a difficult situation.
After retirement, in old age, in Europe and America, if they have good health, they continue to enjoy doing the things they can. They do not stay idle. They enjoy work. They do any work – not thinking status, level, dignity, prestige, if they like. Even the person who was in a high position would work as a volunteer in the library, hospital, school, college, nursing homes wherever he thinks he can be of any use. People join clubs, the church and keep themselves busy. You see some people travel and enjoy seeing and knowing new places, new things. Some people spend time reading and writing. But in our case, with some exceptions, most people prefer to stay idle, not doing anything – eating, sleeping, napping, chatting, gossiping, playing cards, and some other things like. In old age, hardly people like to do volunteer work. Some of them, even they work, work for money.
In Nepal, we always want and prefer to live with your family – especially sons and daughter-in-law and grandchildren where it is possible. But in western countries, the parents neither they want their sons and daughter come and live with them, nor they want to go and live with them. They say they want to keep their independence and not to be of the burden of anyone. In the same way, the sons and daughters think. That is their way of living. Of course, there are some exceptions. Some of them, a very few enjoy living together.
In our country, if your grown-up son with his wife and children thinks to move from your house and lives somewhere not for job or business but just thinking for independent living, you feel a great misfortune entered your home. Great trouble dropped on your head. That is certain. But in the USA, if your 20-year-old son is not moving from your house and living together with the parents, you feel you have a great misfortune following you. What a difference in culture, you see. In our country, we see our siblings as our life long support. There they see that is the burden. If we seriously think and study culture and customs, we often find that your culture and life and necessity are interlinked and may harm to separate it. For example, in our country, we eat cooked, warm vegetables and we drink only boiled milk, not like in America – cold milk or uncooked vegetable. Suppose we do not do that in Nepal; we get sick because of bacteria from raw vegetables and unboiled milk. But in the USA, they have cleaned vegetables and pasteurized milk. So that system or culture would work there and not work here.
In our culture, you cannot even think of putting your loved ones, your older parents in some other place separating from you, not your location, house, or home till you live. Whereas in America, they happily take them to nursing homes to live.
However, the system may be good or bad; if you follow European, American culture, the European, American way of reaching the development to achieve European, American standard, you will undoubtedly have to follow the nursing homes and daycare centers system. We are already starting to experience, though not much. It will come soon if we do not learn to keep our tradition, customs, and culture in education, politics, economy, and planning.
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