The 2007 movie No Country for Old Men is the story of an old man who stands for values while the younger men seem to act according to their wishes. “My will is law” describes this best.
Recently, while travelling, I was left feeling that indeed our country is no country for old people.
Both my partner and I look our age, more so my partner who has silver hair. We were to catch a flight, and as luck would have it, the flight was delayed. The strange thing is that the staff at the airlines counter did not advise us that the flight was delayed, although the boarding pass they gave us showed the new time. We realised the delay only after we had reached the allotted gate.
We went to have lunch but all the eating places in the airport were full and we had to keep walking until we found an eating place where there was one chair available. We were about to take our place when suddenly a youngster from a table nearby dragged away the chair to seat his friend. We could only stare in disbelief.
After an inordinately long time, we found a table and had lunch. We then proceeded to the gate and found the flight was further delayed. We tried to find a place to sit in the travel lounge where certain club members and credit card holders have access. The queue to enter the lounge was serpentine and we gave up.
On returning to the gate area, we could not find vacant seats. We saw three seats which were occupied by luggage left by travellers apparently to reserve the seat. Our first impulse was to place the luggage on the floor and occupy two seats, but neighbours said the seats were taken. Senior citizens like us were walking the aisles of the airport trying to find seats while youngsters beat them to it smugly.
Boarding was another saga, as the queue was not being followed and my advice to the queue jumpers elicited nasty looks. During the bus ride to the aircraft, senior citizens were left standing and clinging to the bus’s overhead straps for dear life, while able-bodied younger folk sat unheeding.
When we boarded the flight, although we had front-row seats, we found that travellers seated a few rows behind us had stashed their bags in the overhead bins meant for us. When we requested the airline crew for help, they said they would help us retrieve the bags on arrival and to place our bags a few rows behind. Not a single young person helped us with placing the bags in the bins. And as we had feared, upon arrival, other travellers rushed out, without giving us a chance to collect our bags. When reminded of her promise, the airline staff shrugged. When my partner attempted to stop the rushing avalanche of travellers to retrieve our bags, he was told rudely by much younger travellers that they were in a hurry as it was late.
This was a flight experience. Boarding a bus or even a train is an ordeal of the worst kind. Even boarding a lift in any building in India is nothing short of an ordeal, for women and the disabled, especially during peak hours. One must experience the shoving, pushing, jostling to believe that citizens can behave in this manner. One is appalled at the lack of civic sense of even educated office goers who often behave like goons. I once watched how they were holding up an employee in a wheelchair and chided the others to make way, but was greeted with angry retorts of “Hum bhi late ho rahein hain!”
I have always made it a point to offer my seat in the airport or the airport bus to older people, and to step aside politely for senior citizens or the differently abled to board. So what has changed? Have we brought up the next generation to be an unfeeling, uncaring, selfish generation who cannot think beyond ‘I, Me, Myself’?
I have a few thoughts to share which may make a difference:
The other day, I watched a video of schoolchildren in Japan doing role plays of bus travel. The children were being taught how to care for the elderly, pregnant women, women with babies, little children and the disabled. They would give up their seat or help the passenger into a seat. I believe that such early training is why during the recent incident of fire in a Japanese aircraft, the travellers followed instructions calmly and evacuated in an orderly manner. Why don’t we have such training in our schools?
The queue system must be enforced at all places such as airports, bus and train stations, railway or movie tickets reservation counters, food counters, and pharmacies, and the appropriate authorities must ensure this.
In the US, I have seen men holding doors open for women. At the elevator, everyone waits patiently to board, and they greet even strangers with a warm smile and a good morning/evening. We do not see a ‘pehle main, baad mein aap’ mindset there, which is more than I can say for us here, having seen the uncivil way in which we often behave. Why not try to inculcate kindness and politeness consciously, just as we practise yoga?
Honesty begins at home. So also do kindness, politeness and discipline. Parents and grandparents must emphasise these soft skills and set an example.
Now that India is ageing, the economy will depend on spending by senior citizens in future, and for that unless civic sense prevails, senior travel may not pick up. We have had campaigns for many things, such as ‘Boycott Maldives’ and ‘Light five diyas for Diwali’. Why cannot India Inc and the government run campaigns on kindness, discipline and honesty?
These are just a few anguished thoughts from a newly-minted senior citizen who hopes to see our country as a country full of beautiful happy, kind and caring citizens.
lakshmi.r.srinivas@gmail.com