By : Ngathingkhui Jagoi/IFP
“Grandma, why are keeping busy yourself fidgeting with broken yarns?” I asked my old grandma late Makatunla who was always busy knotting some broken yarns. “Just trying to rejuvenate my youth,” she replied. “When I am busy on this, it reminds me of the days of our youth. Thus it strengthens me and keeps me happy.” She was a frail old woman in her early 80’s with sunken cheeks, wore powerful glasses yet she was still facing difficulty in tracing the ends of the yarns in 1985 when I came home from college on holidays. Yet, she keeps busy all day long seated on a wooden stool laid on the verandah. Thus she kept herself busy doing something not worth calling a work till she died.
The elderly people fancy keeping themselves busy. This is an area which the Gen-X need to learn from the elderly people. How wonderful the world would be if the younger generation learn to cultivate the habit of keeping themselves busy instead of idling away their precious time!
Another old man that I know was Rev Peter Kashung’s father. We simply call him Awo, which means Grandfather. His daughter-in-law, Moala Kashung was a kind lady and she was always mindful for the comfort and happiness of her father-in-law. Precisely, the old man was provided everything that he needed even when he was in his deathbed. But, still Awo was sad and lonely for the reasons which he thought the younger generation failed to understand the elderly persons like him. I remembered a time when he told me once on the New Year’s Eve of 2000, if I am not mistaken, about some facts which had made him sad and lonely. “I am 102 years old now. All my contemporaries have died. I have nobody with the same interest to talk to now. If there were any of my friends alive today, we would talk about the days we hunted, courted girls and sang endlessly in the morung, etc., long ago. Now you want to talk about cars when I want to talk about buffalo,” he said in almost inaudible tone, his heart apparently breaking.
Yes, the elderly people need people who intently listen to what they say.
Shangnam was another old man in his late 80s during mid 1991. I never saw him wearing trousers or shirts except a loincloth just enough to cover his crotch, which was shrunk for putting a ring made of cane. Rain or shine winter or summer, he was always seen with a heavy red woolen shawl. He and his wife were issueless so he loved to baby-sit small infants. After his wife’s death, he become a lonely old man and frequented at every house that could afford to provide a few cups of hot tea. Being neighbours, our house was one where he frequented in the mornings and evenings. His visits to our home became more frequent after the birth of my eldest daughter, Philatim Jagoi in October 1991. But we never allowed the stinking old man to hold our little daughter. One morning he came to my house and carried off my one-month-old daughter when my wife was busy attending to household chores. When I found him with my daughter after a frantic search, I nearly bashed him up had he not said, “You young people do not understand how lonely I feel. So you mind even your daughter to be in my company and make me happy …?” He was on verge of tears. Not long after the old man fell ill and died.
To the younger generation, the older persons are not interesting to talk to, to play with, to walk along and even callous towards their happiness. Only after the death of Shangnam, the stinking old man, I realized that I had wronged him terribly.
Were it destined for them to face such many miseries no human would have wished to grow old. However, none can avoid the path.
The elderly people conveyed today’s generation. Tomorrow we will be conveying the next generation and we will have to pass the same path passed by them. They were the ones who also took part in shaping the world that is today. We owe them a great deal. Let us pay them by making them live in the way we ourselves want to live.
What we are,
They were;
What they are
We will be.
The Imphal Free Press
“Grandma, why are keeping busy yourself fidgeting with broken yarns?” I asked my old grandma late Makatunla who was always busy knotting some broken yarns. “Just trying to rejuvenate my youth,” she replied. “When I am busy on this, it reminds me of the days of our youth. Thus it strengthens me and keeps me happy.” She was a frail old woman in her early 80’s with sunken cheeks, wore powerful glasses yet she was still facing difficulty in tracing the ends of the yarns in 1985 when I came home from college on holidays. Yet, she keeps busy all day long seated on a wooden stool laid on the verandah. Thus she kept herself busy doing something not worth calling a work till she died.
The elderly people fancy keeping themselves busy. This is an area which the Gen-X need to learn from the elderly people. How wonderful the world would be if the younger generation learn to cultivate the habit of keeping themselves busy instead of idling away their precious time!
Another old man that I know was Rev Peter Kashung’s father. We simply call him Awo, which means Grandfather. His daughter-in-law, Moala Kashung was a kind lady and she was always mindful for the comfort and happiness of her father-in-law. Precisely, the old man was provided everything that he needed even when he was in his deathbed. But, still Awo was sad and lonely for the reasons which he thought the younger generation failed to understand the elderly persons like him. I remembered a time when he told me once on the New Year’s Eve of 2000, if I am not mistaken, about some facts which had made him sad and lonely. “I am 102 years old now. All my contemporaries have died. I have nobody with the same interest to talk to now. If there were any of my friends alive today, we would talk about the days we hunted, courted girls and sang endlessly in the morung, etc., long ago. Now you want to talk about cars when I want to talk about buffalo,” he said in almost inaudible tone, his heart apparently breaking.
Yes, the elderly people need people who intently listen to what they say.
Shangnam was another old man in his late 80s during mid 1991. I never saw him wearing trousers or shirts except a loincloth just enough to cover his crotch, which was shrunk for putting a ring made of cane. Rain or shine winter or summer, he was always seen with a heavy red woolen shawl. He and his wife were issueless so he loved to baby-sit small infants. After his wife’s death, he become a lonely old man and frequented at every house that could afford to provide a few cups of hot tea. Being neighbours, our house was one where he frequented in the mornings and evenings. His visits to our home became more frequent after the birth of my eldest daughter, Philatim Jagoi in October 1991. But we never allowed the stinking old man to hold our little daughter. One morning he came to my house and carried off my one-month-old daughter when my wife was busy attending to household chores. When I found him with my daughter after a frantic search, I nearly bashed him up had he not said, “You young people do not understand how lonely I feel. So you mind even your daughter to be in my company and make me happy …?” He was on verge of tears. Not long after the old man fell ill and died.
To the younger generation, the older persons are not interesting to talk to, to play with, to walk along and even callous towards their happiness. Only after the death of Shangnam, the stinking old man, I realized that I had wronged him terribly.
Were it destined for them to face such many miseries no human would have wished to grow old. However, none can avoid the path.
The elderly people conveyed today’s generation. Tomorrow we will be conveying the next generation and we will have to pass the same path passed by them. They were the ones who also took part in shaping the world that is today. We owe them a great deal. Let us pay them by making them live in the way we ourselves want to live.
What we are,
They were;
What they are
We will be.
The Imphal Free Press
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