RETIREMENT HOMES, OLD AGE HOMES AND BRAHMINS

There is a lot of difference between the old age homes that are run by some of the NGOs or the government and the retirement homes run on no profit basis by the residents themselves or the promoters as a commercial venture.  The high court of Madras had accepted the arguments put forth by the residents of Tapovan, a retirement community home in Coimbatore and modified its earlier order in respect of the old age homes which included all the homes in which senior citizens reside.  However, this blog is not about the difference between these two or the judgement relating to this.  

Brahmins, from time immemorial had been known to travel a lot for learning and for earning their daily bread. It was one of the most important duties of the Brahmin to learn and teach.  In search of knowledge the Brahmins used to travel from one place to other to learn from knowledgeable persons from both other Brahmins and people in other vocations. There are stories in Upanishads of many Kings who have imparted the knowledge of the truth to many Brahmins.  

The Brahmins have been migrating from one place to other in search of knowledge and for earning money for their daily sustenance.  In the early part of the last century, the Brahmins started migrating from their villages to the towns and cities in search of jobs.  Once they got a job in a town or city, they settled down there itself; but visited their ancestral villages on almost all occasions like a festival, important functions in the family or in the village temple etc.  The most important ties to the ancestral villages were the village temple, parents and their landed properties, though not in that order for all.  Over a period of time, the Brahmins started looking for jobs in bigger cities leaving behind the aged parents in smaller towns where they settled near their ancestral villages.  Still the filial connection to the ancestral villages and their parents were there for many for different reasons.

Over a period of time, the people started migrating to the foreign shores first for further education and later for jobs there itself.  Now the ties to the ancestral villages slowly getting broken and the parents who were in the towns and cities in the country started finding it difficult to get along with life in the absence of their off springs any where nearby. This has prompted a few people starting a retirement community in and around Coimbatore on ownership basis. Now these retirement homes are mushrooming across the country with many vying with each other to do better than the other.  These retirement community homes are a pale copy of the hospices that one see in developed countries.  The well heeled or otherwise individuals either with or without their spouses, buy, lease or rent the property in such retirement homes and spend their sunset years in that place.  The promoters provide for a centralised kitchen from where, from the morning coffee to the night glass of milk, everything is taken care of for the dietary requirement of the residents.  The promoters also provide for in house nursing, visiting doctors, pharmacy, a small gymnasium for the interested persons, a prayer and meeting hall, a small temple and a large walk way around the campus.  There are facilities for transporting the sick people to the hospital with a stand-by ambulance.  In some cases, the promoters/ management of these retirement or senior citizens' homes have reportedly taken care of the final rites of the deceased. 

The Brahmins who find that their wards are settled abroad with little chance of their ever coming back, who find managing the large villa or apartment that they acquired while in active service very difficult, opt for such retirement homes.  Those people who have moved into these retirement homes find that they have got a fresh lease of life as they find people of similar age-group from varied back grounds and professions and start enjoying the life.  The vegetarian food which is mostly bland and not spicy is an attraction to most of the senior citizens.  Though there are people from other communities also prefer to live in such environment, the linkage to their ancestral village, lands, elders still remain intact in most of the communities.  Therefore, in most of the retirement communities one finds more Brahmin senior citizens than from other communities. The retirement community homes' promoters also target the Brahmins only knowing fully well that Brahmins are easy prey for such offers.