The face has been haunting me for years. Honestly, even today, after T sixteen years, if I close my eyes, I can vividly see her face-hollowed eyes and sagging skin-mocking me. I failed to help her.
She was completely famished and lost in her ramshackle bamboo shack, surrounded by waist-deep water. Apart from a few old soot-blackened utensils, a bed with a soiled patchwork quilt, a tom mosquito net, and a few dirty clothes hanging from hooks around the hut, it was absolutely empty. I had never imagined that anyone could be so poor and helpless. Something snapped inside me at that moment and eventually led me to start Seneh, a Home for Destitute Old Women. This was in 2011. Today, there are forty-five women who have found shelter and succour at Sench. These are their stories.
Often taken for granted, the elderly are left vulnerable to loneliness and cognitive decline. The cruelty of fate at times becomes unbearable for them. Group Captain Barua writes with empathy about their life stories, their socio- economic background, and their sorry predicament.
Group Captain Atul Chandra Barua, VSM, 79, served in the Indian Air Force for thirty years till his voluntary retirement in 1999. He was an Aeronautical Engineer serving in different capacities in the front-line Air Bases of India. He earned many laurels while in service to the Nation. Post-retirement, his main thrust has been to help destitute old women find succour in the twilight years of their life through his organization. Seneh also provides free sanitary napkins to young school-going girls and food to wards of poor cancer patients. This is his first literary attempt in book form. He has written several articles on old-age care and other related subjects in English and vernacular-language newspapers and magazines.
The face has been haunting me for years. Honestly, even today, after 16 years, if I close my eyes, I can vividly see her face mocking me. I failed to help her.
Her skeletal frame, worn-out face with wrinkled skin hanging loose like a cobweb, sunken dark-shadowed eyes, her uncombed knotted hair, her toothless dry lips, her hunched gait, all made me shiver in disbelief and pain. She was completely famished and lost in her ramshackle bamboo shack, surrounded by waist-deep water. A thirty- plus man was lying on a bamboo bed, stiff and groaning with pain.
I had gone to her village, which was around 60 km from Guwahati on a country boat to render humble help to villagers ravaged by a devastating flood in 2005. Her son, a daily wager was the one lying on the bed. He was paralysed because of an untreated back injury sustained due to a fall from a tree he was pruning in the courtyard of his day's employer. Her only source of livelihood came from her part-time job as domestic help, but this too was impossible at that time because of the devastating floods that had ravaged the village. The other inhabitants had already abandoned the area and sought refuge on higher ground. She had stayed back because of her crippled son.
In their scramble for safety, no one had the time to stop to help them. Neither had any relief reached them. The mother-son duo had eaten no food for days and was forced to drink the floodwaters to quench their thirst. The ramshackled one-room bamboo hut still stood there miraculously because of a number of external bamboo props that had supported it. Apart from a few old soot- blackened utensils, a bed with a soiled patchwork quilt, a torn mosquito net and a few dirty clothes hanging from hooks around the hut, it was absolutely empty. I will never forget her face or the scene I saw that day. I was already familiar with poverty and had experienced hunger from very close quarters, but I had never imagined that anyone could be so poor.
The rocks are huge and black, clinging together like siblings, each dependent on the other for support. They rise high above the ground and have trees sprouting clandestinely up from the gaps between the stones. The early morning rays shine on the weather-beaten faces of the monoliths and the gentle breeze moves the leaves in the trees to a synchronising jig, creating a picturesque setting.
The sturdy structure overlooking this landscape is long, constructed like an 'L', with a very wide veranda. As the rocks glitter in the early morning sun and the birds perched on the trees chirp, the homestead buzzes with activity. The ever-smiling kind nurses Nilima and Janmoni go from room to room, coaxing all the inhabitants to wake up. The no-nonsense chief caretaker Jutika, her gait and demeanour showing who is in charge, is busy bringing in orderliness and decorum. It is a big challenge for the trio, since prayer time, which is almost sacrosanct, is fast approaching.
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