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What senior citizens want…

Ever wonder why a person past the age of 60 wants to marry again? We get experts to tell us.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Shantanu Banerjee* (71), a Bandra-based businessman, lost his wife to cancer four years ago. “Dealing with her illness was painful, especially the last months, when she was home and there was nothing more I could to help her,” he says. “Then she passed away, and our big house began to torture me by being so empty.”

Last year, Shantanu decided to address his loneliness. “I was living with my sister in Bangalore, and I joined a senior citizens club there. I met a woman who my own age, and like me, she loved watching movies and going for walks,” he remembers. Soon, the walks turned into day-long trips, the movie-watching turned into shopping excursions. “We realised we liked being with each other. She was a widow, had been for 10 years. But her outgoing nature made me come out of my grief. I decided to marry her.”

Shantanu and Gayathri Shetty* were married in a quiet ceremony last year. “We live in Mumbai and she has adjusted well. I love having her around the house,” he beams.

Shantanu and Gayathri are part of a growing tribe of seniors that are opting for a second shot at happiness in their twilight years. Given India’s current demographic – the UN says 32 crore of the country’s population will be over 60 years old in the year 2020, and India will soon be counted amongst the world’s ageing nations (where the geriatric population goes up every year) – we are looking at a situation where there will be several, single senior citizens. And most of them might need to find partners.

“People at that age are not necessarily looking for sex in the marriage. They are looking more for love and companionship. We’ve seen that while men want a companion, women want financial security,” says Sailesh Mishra, founder of the NGO Silver Innings, which works for senior citizens in the country.”And while there are several people whose families do not want them to marry ‘at that age’ because they fear what people will think, and also because they don’t realise that old people also need companions, we are happy to see that some children and relatives are totally supportive of them,” he adds.

A number of marriage bureaux catering to senior citizens have sprung up in recent times. Natubhai Patel (62), who started the first such bureau in Ahmedabad and who has to his credit 75 marriages and 25 live-in relationships among senior citizens across the country, says, “At that age, there is no confusion in the person’s mind about what he or she wants from the partner they seek.

For example, there was a 72-year-old who said that he wanted a wife who could also have sex with him. We found a woman, a widow, for him who was prepared to fulfil this condition. Another woman who came to me said that she got a good pension from her deceased husband’s company, and she didn’t want to give it up by marrying another man, but that she wanted a companion. Today, she lives with a man of her age at his home.”

Natubhai says he has a waiting list of 25,000 people looking for partners, and the numbers are just growing every year. “However, we want more women to come forward and ask for companions. It’s very difficult for women in our country, especially at that age, to even say that they want a man in our lives. However, more women are approaching us, which is a good sign.”

Some common expectations from senior citizens:

– A partner for marriage

– A partner for companionship; may or may not live-in with that person.

– A partner only for friendship; could be same-sex; requires the same for common shared interests.

– A partner for sex

(Picture courtesy daydreamingwordsmith.blogspot.com)

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Event

A wedding fair for senior citizens

A wedding fair for senior citizens looking for partners and live-in companions will be held at Matunga on April 7.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

All over the world, senior citizens are expected to settle down into quiet oblivion once they retire from work and cross the magic age of 60, silently watching as their families continue with their lives. In our country, however, the problem of ‘old age’ is compounded for those who lose a spouse to death or divorce – and the worst part is, we don’t want to hear our senior citizens say, “I’m lonely. I want to get married again.”

“With the trend of nuclear families increasing in our country, senior citizens are often left to fend for themselves. The country’s senior citizen population is increasing. Today, 10 per cent of all Indians are senior citizens – 10 crore Indians are over 60 years of age, and 12,00,000 of them are in Mumbai alone,” said Sailesh Mishra, founder of the NGO Silver Innings, which works for senior citizens in the country. He was speaking at a press conference held to announce a ‘Senior Citizens Jeevan Saathi Sammelan’, that will take place at Dadar Matunga Cultural Centre on April 7.

“When a senior citizen loses his or her spouse, he/she becomes really lonely, but they are not allowed to express it because society does not expect ‘old’ people to want a companion at that age,” Sailesh explained. “Research shows that while the longevity of senior citizens in our country is going up each year, women have been found to outlive men. But again, it is very difficult for a woman of that age to say that she needs a companion, that she wants to spend the rest of her life with somebody. We feel that senior citizens should also get the chance to find a suitable mate,” he said. To incentivise women’s participation in the Sammelan, all women who attend the meeting will be given basic train fare, lunch and a saree.

The Sammelan is the brainchild of Natubhai Patel (62), the founder-chairman of Vina Mulya Amulya Seva (VMAS) in Ahmedabad, which has to its credit 75 senior citizen marriages and the setting up of 25 live-ins all over India. “We decided to do  such a big meeting in Mumbai because our research says that 39 per cent of senior citizens living alone in this city are senior citizens. With rising crime against seniors, and the fact that their twilight years can be better spent with somebody of their choice, the Sammelan aims to have willing senior citizens meet each other and make an informed choice about the partner they choose.”

 

Sailesh added that women’s participation in such meetings has been found to be very low. “We want more women to participate. Through our counselling sessions, we find that most men are looking for companionship, while women look for financial security. At that age, marriage is not required for sex, but more for love and security.” On being asked if the organisers would ensure that no fraudulent members participated in the meeting, Sailesh said that all participants would be advised to carry out background checks before going ahead with the person they chose. “We will only facilitate the meeting, apart from helping with legal advice and marriage counselling when required,” Sailesh said.

The Sammelan is not open to people below 50 years of age, or those whose partners are still alive. If divorced, the participant must produce documentary proof of the divorce, or if the spouse is deceased, the death certificate must be shown. An ID proof of age is mandatory. The Sammelan is open to widows, widowers, single people and divorcees, all over 50 years of age. The event is being organised by Rotary Club of Mumbai (Nariman Point), in association with Silver Innings and VMAS. Contact 099871 04233/ 09029000091 for details and registration.

Tomorrow: Who participates in these events? What are senior citizens in India expecting from their partners?

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Governor’s wife wants all-women police stations

After the Government’s announcement of an all-women nationalised bank in the country, the State Governor’s wife wants all-women police stations.

This is getting serious. In the Budget announced last month by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, there was an announcement for an all-woman nationalised bank to be launched later this year. Apart from that announcement, Chidambaram had laid heavy emphasis on women’s safety and security in the light of growing crimes against them.

Today, on the occasion of Women’s Day, a prominent woman – in fact, the wife of the State’s First Citizen, the Governor – expressed a desire for all-women police stations in Maharashtra and the country. Radha Sankaranarayan wished for a more sensitised police force and Courts, and in this connection, she said, “Opening of all-women police stations will give confidence to women to come forward and report crimes against them.”

She was speaking at a seminar on ‘Time for action to end violence against women’ organised by the United Nations Population Fund in association with the Department of Public Health, Government of Maharashtra, at Sahyadri State Guest House in Mumbai. She said, “As a woman, as a mother and as a grandmother, I feel sad, angry and at the same time helpless when I read reports of incidents of violence against women, sexual assault on small girls and even on toddlers. In some cases, the trauma of the victim ends with death. I feel benumbed.”

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Event

Medha Patkar arrested from Golibar Maidan

Activist arrested from Khar site where slum dwellers are being evicted all day. Protesters allege that cops have thrashed them.
by National Alliance of People’s Movements

In a series of illegal actions against the urban poor in Mumbai, the city Police today came down heavily on Medha Patkar and a group of people resisitng the illegal evictions at Golibar, Khar (East). Other active local residents including Prerna Gaikwad, Ajit and 20 men and women have also been arrested this afternoon. Those protesting have been beaten up very badly by the police and goons on behalf of Shivalik Builders, in the presence of MHADA engineers and officials. The latest information is that at least 10 houses have been demolished at Golibar.

A posse of police vehicles and JCB machines are still at the place and the demolition drive is still on.

The bulldozers at Golibar, a 50-year-old slum, are once again out to demolish and evict the slum dwellers who have been fighting corruption and a land grab by Shivalik Ventures, in which the 2G Spectrum scam-ridden Unitech has a stake. In the past, the slum dwellers have repeatedly opposed and exposed the illegal acts of the private developers who are all out to grab the land. It was only after the expose that the Chief Minister of Maharashtra scrapped the two 3K projects.

Even now, as usual, no notice has been served on the people before the demolitions. The Bombay High Court had directed that the residents must be relocated to a good transit camp that is in a completely livable condition, and also directed that individual agreements with the residents must be registered. However, without following this directive of the High Court, the demolitions are continuing in a totally illegal maner. It is also significant to note that as recently as on January 18, the CEO of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), Nirmal Deshmukh, ordered a halt to the demolitions, but the same has started once again, with MHADA’s intervention.”

Update: The NAPM has demanded the immediate release of all detainees, and immediate action on the police personnel involved in the demolition drive. Another demand is for action against Shivalik Builders for several alleged illegalities and encroachments on the land by the firm.

(Picture courtesy thehindu.com. Image is a file pic)

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Overdose

Pedestrian pains

Jatin Sharma recently bought a new car, and he has lost respect for pedestrians already. Read on to know why.

When you buy a new car, you want to respect pedestrians. Mostly because you were one of them before you got your mean machine.

I recently got a new car. In my new-found love for pedestrians hoofing it while I drove by in style, I stopped at every signal, and when I would see them waiting to cross, I would drive to the side of the road and apply the brakes – only to realise that they were not always equally considerate towards me. They would keep crossing one after the other, and others would just jump out after seeing me stop for others. It was almost like it was a race to see who would cross in my front of my car first.

Another time, all the cars were whizzing by and no one was letting the pedestrians cross. My new good-driver soul made me stop. But instead of being thankful, everyone while passing started throwing abuses at me. They vented their frustration at having waited a long while, on me. Me, the guy who had stopped and let them cross. All of them looked at me in anger, also pulling a lot of faces.

This is a good time to insert a quote from Lawrence S Harris: ‘Are we taking drunken drivers off the road to turn them into drunken pedestrians?’ 

I  admit  that I just Googled this quote and I have no idea who Lawrence S Harris is and when he quoted this. But I am putting it out here because it is apt to what I’m about to say next.

Yes, pedestrians have every right to curse, abuse and torment the drivers in our country.  It has been observed that our country lacks basic discipline and respect for traffic rules. Whether it is lane-cutting or rash driving or the, ‘Yeh rasta mere baap ka hai‘ attitude of a driver, our traffic situation is clearly based upon the law of the jungle. Whoever is bigger and powerful rules the roost. It’s that law of nature where the smaller car is bullied by the bigger car, or the bigger bus, or the biggest truck.

But the law of the jungle falls flat when it comes to the pedestrian. Jaywalking is the pedestrian’s favourite pastime and the moment someone is going to hit them, they will not look for logic or the fault of their actions, it directly becomes the question: “Yeh carwale /H@#$zaade samajhte kya hain khud ko?”

Pedestrians labour under the delusion that averting accidents is just a driver’s responsibility. Pedestrians in our country like to jump over dividers and even land on the bonnet of a passing car suddenly. Every time it happens, I wait for at least one of these clowns to jump out with a bugle in hand and yell, “SURPRISE!”. Most pedestrians don’t even realise that the person inside the vehicle is manoevering a machine that is at least 100 times his weight, and he needs to stop it mechanically in order to avoid a disaster.

And if the driver goes wrong even by a whisker, the world and its mother rushes out to bash him up without asking whose fault it was. Our country has so many rules and regulations for drivers, but when it comes to pedestrians, there’s nothing, so we can just hope that each of us is a brilliant driver who can handle any situation. The driver can’t speak on the phone while driving and can’t be drunk behind the wheel and he/she needs to have a seat belt on, but the pedestrian can be drunk and on merrily talking on the phone and can basically get away with anything. 

And there are some pedestrians who make you talk to the hand. Literally. These are what I like to call the Ichchadhari Traffic Police; the moment they want to cross the road, they stroll across it with a hand raised. This species of pedestrian is deaf to honking cars and do not even acknowledge the driver of the car that has braked suddenly to avoid knocking him down. 

I’ve recently learnt that cars and pedestrians contribute to the traffic nuisance in our city in equal measure. Drivers are at fault several times, but pedestrians too need to be a little lenient towards drivers. They need to realise that a guy handling a vehicle must be under tremendous pressure. The pedestrian should try and avert small mistakes, too. He should not pretend to be a hero, leaping across the dividers and catching drivers off guard. 

We are a country that lacks basic infrastructure and courtesy when it comes to traffic rules. But then, the onus is on the people of the country to formulate those rules in order to make road usage beneficial for everyone. A country changes by the attitude of its people. But somehow, when people come out on the roads, either behind the wheel or on their feet, they instantly enter into a competition to see who reaches his/her destination first. 

There is no need to be in a perpetual road race. If we all become considerate about each other on the roads, the day will be come when even in India, drivers would love to stop their car and let the pedestrian cross the road. For now, if the drivers do that, they are only sitting waiting for people to stop crossing the road and let him pass, since the light turned green ages ago.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everyone else.

(Picture courtesy blogs.seattleweekly.com)

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The heat is on

Temperatures to touch almost 40 Degrees Celsius today. Seesaw weather pattern continues, with 20 Degrees deflection in minimum, maximum temperatures.

You are right in thinking that the current weather has breached all levels of crazy. It’s very hot in the day and unexpectedly cool in the night. Today is just the fourth day of March 2013, and in these four days, the city’s experienced some terrific highs and lows in temperature.

Just yesterday, the maximum temperature touched the 39 Degrees Celsius mark – making it the third consecutive hottest March day for Mumbai ever – and dipped to 16.2 Degrees Celsius in the night. Today, too, the same pattern is expected to continue. In fact, the Indian Meteorological Centre (IMD) Mumbai anticipates that the maximum temperature may touch 40 Degrees while the minimum may dip to 14 Degrees, both large departures from the normal March temperatures of 33 Degrees Celsius (maximum) and 20 Degrees Celsius (minimum).

According to VK Rajeev, Director, IMD (Western region), the temperatures have risen because of an ‘anti-cyclone’ formation over the North-East Arabian Sea. For the uninitiated, an anti-cyclone is an area where high pressure winds flow in clockwise direction in the Northern hemisphere and in the anti-clockwise direction in the Southern hemisphere, thus causing temperatures to rise. Humidity levels are also affected.

(Picture courtesy green-4-u.com)

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