BAGWANDAS LOKE
The grey-haired Loke does not think much about the government’s bill. He has wised up to the ways in which children can shortshrift their parents. He asks: "How can they force the children to take care of their parents? If they do this, the children will only beat up their old parents and torture them, like my own son did. Such things are not tackled through laws, but can only be ensured through family affection. If that is not there, no law can help." Loke’s is a curious case. His wife is well-cared for by his family, particularly by his son. But a social worker’s visit revealed that she was a dominating woman who decided that the family could no longer support him. He suffered a stroke three years ago and was partially paralysed, unable to speak or move his limbs. The family rallied around him during this period. But strangely, once he recovered, he was harassed by his family who felt that he should do some odd jobs to earn money. One day he was thrown out. Though his family is just a bus ride away, he has not visited them. Nor has he informed them of his stay at a dharamsala. "Who cares anyway?" he quips.
WINNIE HENRY DAVID
At the Shepherd’s Widows Home at Nagpada, Mumbai, large posters urge its residents against "avoiding an over-inclination to wor ry about everything and placing a greater faith in your maker". Other posters exhort them to go on "living instead of just existing". Ageing Winnie Henry David has taken this advice to heart, shutting off the intransigence of her four children into the past which has no place in her present. She was locked out of her spacious flat in Malad by her eldest daughter one day. But Winnie had anticipated this all along. When her husband, a former manager with Rally Fans, was alive she had lived like a queen, her hands untouched by any household chores, ruling over a fleet of servants. All that changed nine years ago when her husband died. The barbs had their cruel effect, with Winnie’s eldest daughter taking the lead by having the flat transferred in her own name. Winnie had no one to turn to, with her other two daughters having married into Hindu homes where she was not sure of her welcome. Her son had joined hands with the hostile eldest daughter who, not content with cheating her mother of her home, also had the locks changed to ensure she never tried to enter it again. All her jewellery disappeared, too, gradually. When Winnie’s desperate tale reached the ears of her husband’s boss he had her admitted in this home. Recently, one of her younger daughters who had wandered away from the family started visiting her mother. Christmas was a nice family affair, with the grandchildren around, but this too did not last. "My son quar relled with this girl and now even these visits have stopped." But not unexpectedly, Winnie does not miss them anymore. She says she is happy at her new home.
SAVITRIBAI JADAV
She is fighting her son in court. She had to take this step because he turned her out of her own home despite the fact that she had struggled to build the tenement after years of hard work. What upsets her most is the fact that her son dragged some henchmen to the house in order to threaten Savitribai to leave. A bitter person today, thanks to her son’s behaviour, Savitribai hopes that the court will mete out justice—so that she can live her twilight years with dignity.
AMAR SINGH
After putting away money from his meagre Rs 1,200 salary at the Birla Mills, Singh used his provident fund collections to buy a lovely home in Gwalior. The rest of his savings were eaten up during his daughter’s wedding. In 1978, after his wife’s death, he transferred his house in the name of his only surviving heir and favourite child, his teenaged son. And looked forward to living there when he quit his job as mill-worker at the Bhiwandi powerlooms. So, he was shocked when his co-workers from Gwalior informed him of strangers living in his home. Singh rushed back to discover that the house had been sold off for Rs 2.5 lakh, with which his son had bought himself a lorry.
The homeless Singh, soon jobless too, had no place to go. He came to Mumbai and lived in its readymade homes, the railway platforms, for a while before moving into a dharamsala.
His son visited him once. Singh recalls the visit: "We spent exactly two minutes together. What do I have to say to him after what he has done to me? The social worker here is more kind to me than my own children."
AYESHA SHEIKH
Ayesha had always been self-sufficient, earning Rs 375 per month as ward assistant at Kasturba Hospital. But she spent all her earnings on her three-children family. And had nowhere to go after retirement. She moved into the home of a patient stricken with tuberculosis, who she claims, bequeathed his flat to her and all his provident fund money after a legal wedding. But when he died, his heirs, who had neglected him till then, landed to claim all. And turned Ayesha out.
She spent three years living off relations but was politely asked to leave one day. She moved out into the streets till someone directed her to the Shepherd’s Widows Home.
