The arms that cuddled with Love

Now this is something I wrote long back for a Magazine but it was not selected...so I publish it myself here...

The arms that cuddled with Love are stretched pleading for the same...

"Blogspot" provides a platform to give lyricism to feelings and thoughts dwelling in the heart of hearts, to render the beauty of words to our contemplation, meditation and introspection. As an adolescent of fifteen sitting in a clinic where my mother had gone for a check up, I started deliberating on this issue. This whole contemplation was kindled by a few words written on a poster hanging on the wall. The words went like this-"If you think SOMEBODY is a burden to you today, DON’T FORGET you were a burden to that SOMEBODY in the past and you will be a burden SOMEBODY else in the future." These words made me think hard to decipher who that SOMEBODY was and it was only a matter of seconds and I realized that the person who said these words was referring to two people by "SOMEBODY". Two people who are indispensable for your whole existence in this beautiful world. They are the ones, who introduce you to the world by giving you a name, by giving you your identity. Mother is the one who carries you in her womb for nine whole months embracing every hardship that she encounters, every pain that she suffers from, absolutely for you to come to this earth. Your father is the one who holds your hand and helps you in taking your first steps, in bouncing back every time you fall learning to walk into the grand entrance of your life. The lives of parents change when their entire dreams and aspirations take the human form. Every decision they take thereafter is touched by you – the privileged life-affirming person in their life. They see their dreams live through you. The subtle sacrifices they make for your sake may go unnoticed several times but the fact that their love is the most unconditional is carved in stone.

It is very unfortunate that old age homes are filled with such "once upon a time" loving parents who spent all their life insuring their children against the forces of evil and the necessity for insuring their own life was expunged by their enormous love for their offspring. The same child who was the apple of their eye a few years back has orphaned them after growing up. I wonder how a person can hesitate to even feed the same people whose hands fed him in the past. The same people who slogged their guts out for his education, for his progress. Why does one kick the ladder after reaching the pinnacle? This is not an imagination as the large number of old age homes which exist are a proof of this. Why does one not realize that life not only evolves but also revolves like a wheel where the person at the top has to go through the stages where he too gets crushed between the wheel and the hard land? The glory days are ephemeral.

I have personally come across families where retirement marks the end of all happiness, freedom and respect for the parents. They are then doomed to depend on their children who consider them as burden and suffer humiliation and insult. They have to put their heads down which they had always lifted up till that point in life. There are instances where a father cannot even make a phone call without his son’s permission; a mother cannot cook what the current BOSS of the house dislikes. How can a person forget the reality of life that everyone has to go through every stage in life? When the parents never treated them as dependents earlier in life and instead made their children the prince and princess of the house why should they be a sentenced to a life filled with insult, sorrow and disparagement? Does money make man forget his responsibilities, his duties? Is the extensive world filled with cut throat competition where people are racing to outsmart each other shrinking at the level of moral values and sentiments? I fail to understand why a person who can support his wife and his children thinks twice before spending a hundred rupee note for his father’s medicine. The increasing number of nuclear families may be due to several factors like job opportunities in big cities, education, money etc but this escapism from responsibility towards parents is definitely a factor.

Parents are also human beings and as it is said "To err is human". Due to generation gap there may be issues on which the elderly differ, they may also make mistakes and be emotionally unstable due to old age. But all these are microscopic when compared to the amount of love they always showered on the pieces of their heart that they allowed to walk out by having children. So the younger generation needs to realize that there is no need for old age homes where humanity exists, where love exists, where responsibility, duty, sentiments and gratitude are given prime importance. Finally at the end of our lives when our entire life flashes in front of us we should rather feel proud about the way we kept the two important people in our life happy and not be guilty of making the people who loved us suffer. So I urge the youth to take an oath of being responsible and giving care and love that our parents deserve.