Caregivers
Just look around,
at your neighbours. Families, which traditionally produced 3 children, an heir,
a spare and a dutiful daughter, now have just two or sometimes one. No spare no
duty conscious daughter. The progeny is earning a lot of money in some foreign
country like USA, England, Australia or
Singapore. This leaves aging parents in India with plenty of material
wealth, loose cash , a house and transport, but come illness there is no one to
help or take the responsibility.
An uncle recently
ha a massive heart attack. He is lucid and mentally agile but confined to bed.
He can walk a few steps up to the toilet without getting breathless, but that
is it. They couldn’t do a bypass because the arterial plaques were calcified. His eyesight and hearing are
failing. He is a good 6 ft 3 ins in height and the
weighing scale goes way beyond the 100 kilo mark.
The aunt is a good
five years younger, diabetic and with elevated lipids, but she is active and
fairly able to cope.
“How can I get a
servant to look after my husband? I need some one to stay the night. Can you
get me one from Tamil Nadu?” Her state Kerala had a high level of literacy. Docile domestic help was hard to come by.
“There are agencies” I said .They will get you some one.”
My aunt
protested,” they are expensive—“
“Well” I said “you
really can’t really look at that now. You can’t lift him yourself and he needs
help.”
The agency sent a
“male nurse”. His qualifications were open to question but he had a superb
physique. He looked like he had been twirling a Karla all day. He had obviously watched
too many movies , in which the lady of
the house becomes enamoured of the
muscular hired help!
“Is there
something wrong with your eye?” My aunt asked. You can’t blame her. “One keeps
shutting all the time.”
That was the end
of his winking at her.
He bumped into my
curvy cousin” accidently “a couple of times. That was enough for her. She
stopped coming downstairs as long as he was in the house. She even demanded
that her food bee taken upstairs on a tray.
My poor aunt!
There was more work than ever.
Finally the
attendant could not control himself any more. He grabbed the maid near the
staircase and squeezed her breast as he tried futilely to kiss her.
“Stop it you
donkey” she said “I know your phone number. I am going to call your wife and
tell her what you do! Are you supposed to work or do all this?”
His face became
ashen. He muttered something and went into the garden.
At 5 pm my aunt
started searching for him. “ It time to give uncle his bath.”
The professional
help was no where to be seen. He had collected his clothes and vanished without
a trace.
“Good riddance “
said my aunt, “he seems to have a weakness for women.”
He did not return
to collect his salary either, so my aunt was needlessly fussed about
expenditure. She got 2 weeks coverage
free!
The next man had a
tendency to leave his shirt unbuttoned to the waist. He had a dark hairy torso
and a round pot belly. He was soft spoken and polite to a fault. He bend low
whenever he spoke . he always asked “Is there anything else I can do?”
Aunt went upstairs
to have a bath. She thought she heard a scrabbling noise outside the door. She
peered out but there was no one there. Later that evening the milkman came for
his bill. She went upstairs collected her hand bag and opened it. There were a
few 100 rupee notes, no 500 and no 1000.
“Where can my
money have gone?”
The polite
caregiver silently disappeared.
She contacted the
agency again.
“Madam, we cannot really help you. We can
provide a person only once in two months. We have priority patients. The two
people we sent to you have not contacted us again. They haven’t even paid us
our dues.”
Status quo.
Growing old in
India is not easy.
.
“
