Disclaimer*: The articles shared under 'Your Voice' section are sent to us by contributors and we neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of any facts stated below. Parhlo News will not be liable for any false, inaccurate, inappropriate or incomplete information presented on the website. Read our disclaimer.
This post is also available in: العربية (Arabic) اردو (Urdu)
When you hear the word, “An Old Home”, you picture a group of elderly people talking loudly, knitting sweaters and playing board games without a care in the world.
That’s the same image I took with me when I entered one such old house. A home for the homeless. Although, I wouldn’t call it a home. Across the three-car parking lot was a one-story building in which there was a small green metal door with rust on its edges. As I entered through that door I came face to face with a ‘home’ for the living dead.
On my right were three rows of prayer mats with stray cats sitting nearby and a bunch of old, brown, broken school chairs in a corner. To my left, there was an opening in the wall, acting as a door to an open room. In that room, ten old men were sitting on two sofas, around a coffee table. Each of them dressed in plain Shalwar Kameez and wearing a look of despair. In another room nearby, six old women were sitting around a dinner table, silently ingesting their food without so much as a look in my direction. None of them, expecting a visitor.
I sat with the men and asked what brought them here, I was given one simple response, “Kismat” (Fate). One of these men (let’s call him Qasim) came and sat next to me when he realized I was hoping for something more. A 78-year-old man who had nothing left to live for.
He was born in Ludhiana, India, 8 years before the partition of the subcontinent. He migrated to Lahore with his family and had been living in Taj Pura, an old area near the GT Road since then. He has six sons and four daughters, all living in Lahore. Qasim had been diagnosed with cancer in his kidneys three years ago and he had been here since that day.
You wonder why an old home and why not a hospital? He isn’t critical, he’s just sick and requires care. Something his family could not provide. Now you assume they had money problems and his new residence provides the financial assistance, you’re wrong. Yes, Qasim did have trouble financing his treatment but the problem was solved by a local minister who agreed to cover his hospital bills. The actual ‘problem’ his family faced was the lack of will to care for their ailing father.
Qasim is a dark-skinned, weak old man, with a kind but troubled face. He has short black hair, high cheekbones, and sunken brown eyes which have seen too much of the world. But still, these eyes looked towards me with hope for his two daughters when I asked him about their education. He kept repeating, “I wish them success in the future, I just want to see them stand on their own two feet”.
When asked about his sons, his response was, “I fed 10 people my entire life, and those 10 people couldn’t feed me for half of theirs”. As he sat there with tears rolling down his cheeks while he talked about his family, none of his colleagues moved a muscle to comfort him. To them, this was all too familiar. This was their ill fate.
Qasim talked about the good old days when he used to steal candy from a nearby shop in his neighborhood. When he got married and had started work as a meter reader at the newly constructed Warsak Dam near Peshawar. As an 18-year-old boy who had just cleared his matric exams, he was preparing to support his gradually growing family.
He now shares a room with a man from Bangladesh, or as Qasim likes to call it, East Pakistan. He spends his days going for regular checkups to the hospital, playing Ludo with his colleagues or watching TV. Once in a few months, one of his children comes to pay him a visit, as he calls it, “to check whether I died yet”.
Qasim is a forgotten old man in this fast-paced world. Someone who constantly yearns for his past. For the days when burqa-clad women were seen riding on horse carriages, coming back from school. When every other person on the street would stop to greet him while he was coming back home. When cars were a luxury that only the elite could afford, he yearns for that respect and that sense of belonging which is only present in his memories. He yearns for the simple old days when families stuck together.
Qasim has one advice for the new generations, “take care of your elders today because tomorrow, you will be in their shoes”. Useless and forgotten like the broken, brown chairs at the entrance of the old home because Qasim is not the only one with this story.
There are 16 residents living in that building, out of whom, 12 were abandoned by their families. The other 4 chose to leave on their own. Most have been here for less than 5 years, a few have spent a decade. When asked about how their lives are, the usual response is, “Bas guzar rahi hai” (It’s just passing by).
Although, to an outsider, it might seem like a good place for senior citizens. Somewhere they get constant care, healthy food, and the company of their age mates. An open area to roam around and big grounds to get fresh air. What these people crave is attention from their loved ones and a sense of belonging. Every few weeks one person dies leaving behind an empty bed to be reoccupied by another dying soul. Never properly mourned, never truly understood.
Women sit idle in the brown wooden chairs, wool and needles stowed under their beds. No need for sweaters when you don’t have someone to give them to. A window passes through the entire length of the main room. The irony was in what could be seen through the window. An elementary school. One window dividing two worlds, the future, and the past.
We can end Qasim’s story with his parting words, “The hardest job is raising a human because anyone can raise a child”.
