Years ago, Dove chocolate packets used to contain small pages that would have inspiring quotes and “promise messages” inside them; among the many messages spread that way was a sentence “Age is nothing but a number”.

It has been a long time since Dove stopped sending out these messages; in that time, many rivers have stopped flowing and many forests have stopped blooming at the height of spring. Back then, Dove’s message just might have been believable. But in today’s advanced societies, it sounds like a dream.

Most countries in the world have ageing populations and this unprecedented demographic change has already transformed their societies. Boys are no longer their mom’s sons, just as girls are no longer their father’s; they now hold their freedom over family ties and have learned that their old parents are burdens that they can no longer justify carrying.

The elderly are considered burdens by their immediate family; their sons and daughters no longer want to take the responsibility of their bed-ridden parents. The same parents who did not allow their children to sleep on the floor lest they should catch a cold are now showed the door of the house by their daughters-in-law. The same father who did not enjoy a single week of vacation in his entire life in order to provide for his son is today considered a resource-hungry backload by that offspring. The same daughter, whom her mother would not allow to get away from sight for a single moment back then, chooses to leave the mother alone in an old home.

All family ties, all bonds, all memories, all affection, everything decays inside old people’s memories in a quiet corner of old homes; all because they are old, worthless and unfruitful.

A man named George McDonald once said that age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk. Well, a walk down the long corridors of Probin Hitoishi Kendra in Agargaon speaks otherwise. The frail bodies, the wobbly legs, the squinting eyes, and the silent tears that run down the uncountable wrinkles that line the sad faces; all speak otherwise.

Many of the residents have moved to the old home after suffering for years at their own homes, where they find themselves unwanted and neglected. Not willing to stay back as a burden to their children, they move out of their own homes in order to give some space to the uncaring child. At least they can console themselves with the knowledge that their sons and daughters are happy; whether the joy is in getting rid of them is another question altogether.