‘Stay home. Stay safe’; ‘Follow social distancing’; ‘Avoid face-to-face meetings’ are a few critical calls during the COVID pandemic. But where they make complete sense to our rational minds, for the emotional part of personalities that depends on human-to-human touch, they sound like a death knell and more so for our senior citizens who found solace in their winter years with friends and relatives. For them, social distancing has become a bigger crisis that COVID itself. 

According to the census reports, about 9% of India’s population consists of senior citizens with many of them living alone since their children have moved to other cities or countries in pursuit of better career prospects.

Today these seniors feel that social distancing is akin to a punishment for them and that too for a crime they didn’t commit. The unfairness of it all is affecting their happiness greatly. “I have a son who lives in Delhi. I used to be alright here in Bihar with my wife, group of my neighbours and friends, also senior citizens like me, watching out for each other. We had a rotational system where breakfast was cooked in one house, lunch in another, dinner in third and shared with other houses, thereby taking away the burden of cooking three meals every day. For tea also we used to gather at each other’s house in the evening. But social distancing has not only made us lonely, but also difficult to take care of ourselves. 

I am 76-years-old and it is difficult to go out to get groceries every day, so once a week I go out to buy whatever is needed for the week. Last weekend, because of the sun and no cabs and autos, I got slightly dizzy walking down the road and I fell right there due to exhaustion. I am thankful to the police patrol vehicle that helped me up and dropped me back to my house. I wanted to go to the hospital for a check-up but every one discouraged me saying that hospitals are hotspots of the virus. At last, it was left to my aging wife and me to figure out what happened, get medicines delivered, and lock ourselves back in our houses. I even hurt my leg in the fall.

All this makes me wonder--What if the police hadn’t come to my rescue?  Would I have died on that very road?

Given social distancing, though my friends are concerned, they are not able  to come and help me or my wife. We are struggling all alone—all the work burden has come down on my poor wife’s head. If this had happened anytime earlier, our house would  have been full of people, fussing around me, making me feel comfortable, helping my wife with house chores, someone would have bought food and someone would have bought medicines while another would have arranged for a physiotherapist for my leg, and yet another neighbour would have made me laugh at my clumsiness.

And now what we have is: me lying on the bed or sitting in a chair unable to do anything, feeling useless, worthless, and a burden on my dear wife; my wife who is also aging stepping out to buy groceries and when  she can’t we end up eating dry rations such as daal chawal for days at an end. The doctor advised me on the phone to eat more fresh veggies and eggs etc. to recover soon but  who will go out again and again to buy it?

Both of us feel so helpless and forlorn sometimes...there are days when we haven’t exchanged a word with each other except for the customary call for meals, or chores.

It seems life has become colourless and useless and there is no point in continuing living it without any joys.

"I think I might die because of this scare and social distancing before COVID gets to me,” said Badrinath Misra, a 78-year-old retired ex-PWD employee from Patna.