By Siddharth Pandey To Ajit, who works as a gardener in Noida, there is only one person who matters. And that is his uncle, Parameshawar Verma. Ajit is certain that if it was not for his Babuji (as Ajit affectionately calls his uncle) he and his siblings would have been nowhere. The reason Parameshawar evokes…
By P. Ramesh Kumar “It’s over… she’s gone,” said a female voice on the phone. I froze with moist eyes for several moments that brought my life to a standstill, as I felt a twitch in my navel. My mother had just died in the intensive care unit of Apollo Hospital in Chennai and her…
By Gurpreet Chawla I’m a member of an FB group on travel. One of its members recently posted: “Need someone to be with my father on his birthday in New Delhi. I can pay 5–8$ per hour for the time spent.” The FB post didn’t receive a positive response but sarcastic comments. Three days later,…
By P. Ramesh Kumar I was like a character in a play who was not given his lines. Can there be a rehearsal when the event in question is the death of a parent? It was out of the blue one day when I had just arrived at my workplace that I got a telephone…
By Yogendra Deva In our sleepy little town, my father, an English professor in a local college, would spend hours at his rusty little typewriter weaving stories, writing letters to the editor, churning out books on critical studies on English literature for students, and much more. Despite his age, he connected effortlessly with the younger…
By Sunil Saxena Do you know which form of abuse the elderly suffer the most or who inflicts it? It is emotional abuse, and is inflicted by the immediate family if the elderly lives at home or by the health caregivers if the elderly lives in an old age home. Unfortunately, such abuse is rarely…
By Jasmit Khurana I had heard of psychotic disorders from my friends but I did not know how scary it is to experience one. Last night, I experienced one and it has left me shaken and scarred. I had come to India after eight years, and I was very excited to visit my childhood friend…
By Kunāl Majumder It’s 5:06 am on Christmas Eve. I’m here by my mother’s hospital bed, deciding on her next medication. Three days ago, I returned from an overseas trip to find that Maa hasn’t been well for days. She had to be rushed to the Emergency and then admitted due to high BP and…
By Gurpreet Chawla As a child, I lived in Delhi with my parents. My father’s elder brother and younger sister also lived in Delhi with their families. My grandparents lived in our hometown, Yamuna Nagar in Haryana with my father’s younger brother. My grandfather assisted in my Chacha’s business and would rarely come to Delhi….