Senior Citizens on the Streets (BHUTAN)

The number of old and abandoned people on the streets flies in the face of our GNH philosophy

By Kinga Dema

23 June, 2009

His wrinkled right hand wrapped tight around a stick, Lhakpa, 74, sits on a roadside pavement near the Thimphu vegetable market, staring at no one in particular. Land-cruisers zip by leaving a cloud of dust. The specks descend on his faded gho, dusty from days of sitting by the roadside. He lights a bidi, takes in a deep puff, and is ready to talk to Kuensel.

"Whether I’m alive or not doesn’t make any difference to my son," says Lhakpa.

He came to Thimphu from Paro after he fell severely ill years ago. He spent months in Thimphu hospital. By the time he recovered, he learnt that his only son had sold the small house he owned in Paro and disowned him. His wife had died several years back. Lhakpa became a vagabond.

"I never have three meals a day," he said, adding that he is just praying for a peaceful death.

Lhakpa has many such friends with him: old people loitering around town, begging near monasteries or markets, and sleeping on the sidewalks.

What prompts these old people to leave their villages is their children, who have migrated to urban centres for work. With age fast catching up on them, and no one to look after them in the villages, they come to towns to spend their last days with their children.

Many land up being mistreated, as their children struggle to survive the high standard of living in towns. This is especially true where the children earn less. At times, the stubbornness of old parents resulted in ego clashes with their children, so they walked out of homes.

The issue, observers say, is the disintegration of traditional families into nuclear ones and whether there should be an old age home in Bhutan. There aren’t many agencies that have taken up the issue.

Tarayana Foundation, a non-government organisation, looks after the welfare of abandoned, disabled and mentally challenged people. They are paid a monthly stipend of Nu 500. It also disperses funds-to dzongkhags for such identified people in the villages. As of 2008, Tarayana supports 141 senior citizens and 73 people under special needs programme across the country.

The director of the national commission for women and children (NCWC), Dr Rinchen Chophel, said that NCWC handled people discarded by their families. NCWC was promoting the issue in every possible way, he said.

"The government should decide whether they can apply the concept of GNH equally for everyone, including discarded elderly people," said Dr Rinchen Chophel. "The concept shouldn’t just apply to those, who are happy, because they already have ways and means."

National Assembly (NA) member, Dupthob, said that, although Bhutan needs an old age home, the pros and cons should be studied well. He said that it might hurt the age-old traditional family bonds and values that most Bhutanese share, unlike in the west. "So, if there’s an old age home, chances of children dumping their parents are likely to increase."

SOURCE: Kuensel, Buhutan's National Newspaper - Bhutan

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