LIFE OF ELDERLY COUPLES

Well, my friends I am not yet dead but ideas which kept cropping up for writing died very young. So my absence from here for over 2 months. Today I decided to write whatever comes in my mind while I am here.

As told in my previous post, we - self & wife, are living alone for the past 2½ years as our children are married and settled in their own lives. Though our daughter stays in the same city but in a different area, we do not wish to burden her. We do meet once in two or three weeks. Her children, studying in 9^th and 5^th, spend a couple of days with us depending upon their school / studies schedule. Our son is in Canada with his family. So I think it does qualify me to speak about life of couples staying alone, by choice or otherwise.

We do find a lot of time at our hands. She watches TV when she is not busy in kitchen or some other chore. She found channel Zindagi interesting. I take up outside chores. Our dog also takes part of my time - taking her for walks, feeding her or grooming her. Once a week I give her bath. She is over 10 years old, so technically she is the eldest in the house as their one year of life is equal to human 7.52 years or so. I still find a lot of time at hand. So apart from reading, I also watch news and 4 serials on TV.

My experience of TV is not a happy one. There are such glaring discrepancies in story line of serials that one wonders if producers take viewers to be fools. Also the serials drag on and on and on by some way or the other. It seems that the aim is to reach at least a thousand episodes. Thus it becomes so dull once the main point for which the serial started is over and then dragging starts. That is why my wife finds Zindagi better as serials stick to one story line for which started and finish as soon as that point is over. No serial exceeds maximum of 50 episodes or so.

Apart from that most of the shows on TV are not hearing impaired friendly. I am hard of hearing and use hearing aids. News channels are fine as pop ups in writing are also there alongwith news reading and there is no background music. In case of serials one has to hear the dialogues to follow the story. So if I raise the volume to suit my need, even with hearing aid, it does not help as the background music is so loud and jarring that it drowns what those artistes are speaking. Enough of my laments.

Coming to the elderly couples living alone, we find a lot of time at our hands inspite of engaging is some activity or the other, even social service as once day is over at night one is at ownself. No matter how brave a front we elderly couples put up it is a fact that we do miss our grandchildren, if not children.