By Abhishek Sharma January now feels like a season of silence for 80-year-old Mrs. Kanti Sharma, a mother of five. The month that once meant family picnics, kites in the sky, and bowls of warm halwa in the sun, now arrives like an unwelcome reminder. For the past one year, it’s been a relentless trial…
By Abhishek Sharma “They don’t like being called ‘old’, yet the media continues to be indifferent to them,” is the regret of veteran journalist-turned-educator, Mr. P. Ramesh Kumar. He says that from his early days in journalism to now, there has never been a consistent or serious focus on elderly issues. “I neither recall any…
By Saloni Singh The choice was not an easy one for 68-year-old, Mrs. Rajvati Singh. The options in front of her were: either get a knee replacement surgery done or continue enduring the pain. In 2021, she decided to take the risk despite the fear of the surgery failing. The cost of the surgery was…
By Saloni Singh Twenty-four years have passed since the 2001 Bhuj earthquake but Mr. Gajraj Singh, who was posted as a Junior Warrant Officer in the Radar Controlling Department of the Indian Air Force there, vividly remembers that fateful day and the horrifying spectacle he witnessed. He shudders when he remembers what he saw that…
By Saloni Singh It was a freak accident which changed the life of 32-year-old Mrs. Chandra Devi forever. The accident, which happened in the quiet village of Shahadra, situated in Noida, caused grievous injuries to Mr. Vijay Singh, her husband who was about 40 years old at that time. Mr Singh lost vision in one…
By Sunil Saxena In the very first year of my wedding, I was blessed with twins — a boy and a girl. It was a joy to see them grow up. Today, both are married, have families of their own, and live their own lives. On my 65th birthday, they gifted me a scrapbook. The…
By Sunil Saxena Decades ago, when I was a teenager, I read the classic Gone with the Wind. I was greatly inspired by its protagonist Scarlett ‘O’ Hara. Whenever she had a bad day and felt defeated, she would pick herself up and say: “Tomorrow is another day.” This became my life mantra. Whenever I had…
By Sunil Saxena I wish someone had told me that I am not what I think I am. For decades, I believed that my identity came from my name, from my family background, from the education that was imparted to me, from the cultural mores that I picked up from my surroundings as I grew…
By Sunil Saxena The distance from my home in Noida to the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi is around 35 km. On normal days, it takes a little over an hour to reach the airport. That is what I had factored when, recently, I went to drop a friend at the airport. I…