PS SUNDAR'S THINK TANK: LIFE ENRICHMENT - 4 : CARING FOR ELDERS, A PASSION AND MISSION

CARING FOR ELDERS, A PASSION AND MISSION

BY P S SUNDAR

A tea small grower couple has brought about a social renaissance in the tea hub of Denalai village, some 10 kilometres from Coonoor.

Thanks to them, 15 deserted senior citizens (as on Nov 28, 2013) including nine women are benefiting from free accommodation, food, bedding with attached bathroom, clothes, visits to worship places, personal hygiene including hot water bath, haircut and cloth washing.

So, it is not yet another old age home for the affluent but for the deserted poor. It all happened when N Ramamurthy, a health inspector in Tamil Nadu Government, and his wife Rajeswari, a tea small grower, decided to use the income from tea leaves for taking care of deserted old people.

“While working as leprosy inspector, I was moved to see elderly patients suffering for want of timely care. So, in 2005, we accommodated two orphaned elders in our house. As three more sought help, we formed M N Trust in my parents’ name and converted our old house in our tea field into the Home for deserted aged”, Ramamurthy told me.

However, it was not easy because tea income was insufficient for construction works. Pumping in his salary, Ramamurthy has created three dormitories, bathrooms, kitchen and prayer hall. “The 400-square-foot old house has now become the 1,600 square-foot asylum. We have provided cots and blankets. Some inmates had died and we did decent cremation”, Ramamurthy said.

It was R Muralidharan, Operations Manager, Gateway Hotel Coonoor, who took me to this Home first on June 29, 2013. I took visitors to the place subsequently. Every time I visited this place, I noticed changes .. some inmates died, some newcomers, area expansion, ceiling rising, solar water heater etc etc.."I want to use my superannuation earnings for finishing the infrastructural works here, so that after me, those who manage the Home need spend only on providing food and clothes to the inmates", Ramamurthy tells me periodically.

Caring for elders is the passion of this couple as I have written in this article published in The New Indian Express on July 1, 2013:

I have documented the couple's contribution as "Unsung Heroes in Tea Community" in this article in The Assam Review and Tea News (July 2013):

The Gateway Hotel Coonoor has been serving this Home as part of its corporate social activity. "We have been periodically serving food to the inmates. Our staff members have also personally contributed their mite. In effect, we have assisted the Home with chairs, tables, plates and blankets", D Antony Gerald, Gateway's Human Resources Manager, told me. This photo taken by me shows Muralidharan, Chef D Ramalingam, Housekeeping Head R Nagaraj (second left) and Purchase Department Head S Siva (extreme left), serving food brought from their hotel to the inmates:

Interestingly, the Home is sensitising youth on caring for elders as these photos I had taken of the Notices displayed there indicate:

I had documented this in my article in The New Indian Express on July 31, 2013:

What would have happened if this Home failed to accommodate some such elders? "They would have ended up as beggars and some would have committed suicide", Ramamurthy told me which kindled my writing this article in The New Indian Express (Aug 16, 2013):

And, the Home teaches youth to experience the unparalleled joy of giving. I asked Vaishnavi, a XII standard student, to look at the face of the receiver (a) when he/she comes to receive the blankets she was donating, (b) when he/she actually receives them and (c) when he/she goes off with the blanket. Vaishnavi was moved to tears after this experience and she told me that her attitude to life has changed. This was one of the pictures I had snapped of Vaishnavi donating the blankets:

And, the receivers also react with sentiments as only they can measure the benefit of the gift. One inmate, for instance, asked Sruthi, visitor from Dubai, if she would sit on her lap just like her grand daughter. And, I snapped this unusual photo:

Sruthi also pleased the inmates by showing photos she had clicked of them. Many were eager to see how they looked as this photo I had snapped shows:

If such small pleasures can be big for the deserted elders, they experience immeasurable happiness when people visit them as these photos taken by me show -- in the first, visitors from Dubai led by K G Veeraraghavan and his wife Geetha and the second, from Thrissur led by Usha (seen with Ramamurthy's daughter Seema in the photo):

'Visitors' means, support, monetary and moral, to The Home. All the above were donors. "To celebrate my 16th birthday, my parents and relatives had lined up 16 mega events -- visit to this Home, contribution and service to the inmates was one of them. Flying in from Dubai where I was born and growing, I learnt a lot from this visit", Sruthi told me.

The Rotary Club of the Nilgiris which has funded the construction of gender-based toilets, approach road and area expansion, has also contributed solar heating systems as this photograph shows of Rotary District Governor Dr Senthilnathan Siva dedicating them on November 12, 2013: