Caring and sharing

In former times, old, young and younger persons and children lived in large joint families, which facilitated in fulfilling their needs, including those of gossiping and picking up small quarrels. Now most families consist of parents and their children. Such families live within the country as well as abroad due to economic reasons. Those working in foreign lands and within the country at faraway places do send money to their parents. Fathers and mothers get financial support with which they hire domestic help.

However, in the time of coronavirus pandemic, helpers are difficult to get. This situation has produced various kinds of services, both paid for and voluntary, to aid old people. These services are available in all major cities of the country. There are organisations offering services to senior citizens for a reasonable amount of money. There are volunteers helping the old on a voluntary basis. Both groups are driven by their zeal to serve humanity in need and provide care to old people in the absence of their children. They are doing the noble work with the spirit of caring and sharing. They are just a phone call away. They help find house cleaners, people to wash and press clothes, cooks and those needed to do outdoor work like doing shopping for groceries and other food items, fetching medicines from medical stores and for doing other works for which people in old age need others to help them. Doctors and nurses also are available through these service providers. They provide company too to lonely couples. All such services and people caring for neighours in need are positive aspects of an otherwise unpleasant and frightful pandemic. Aged people are more vulnerable to contracting coronavirus, so they are doubly scared of it.

All this shows that the spirit of caring and sharing is still alive in our society. And reminds of the days gone by when kind-heartedness reigned supreme.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2021.

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