Sunday, February 25, 2001		Article

JUDGING by magazines, shopping malls, fashions, new products and almost

all advertising, if you’re a woman alone, especially a widow and over 45, you’re almost invisible a has-been, a non-entity. Unless you’re very rich and are already famous or infamous! Yet there are a growing number of older widows living alone, whose problems and lives seem to be of no interest to anyone except to themselves, a stray novelist or two, and perhaps a few friends.

It seems a dreadful thing to say, but it is an incontrovertible fact that the younger one is when widowed, the easier it is to make a new life — with or without a new partner. For one thing, parents are probably still alive and supportive. For another, if there are young children, although the mechanics of school and meals and homework, can be difficult to manage on one’s own, especially if one has to keep up with a job too, yet it must be said that the work involved and the lack of time for oneself, is therapeutic.

The older one is, when widowed, the more difficult it is to adjust to living alone. The chances are that one has no parents and the children are married and lead their own busy lives; very often too, these days, children live abroad and visiting is expensive and difficult.

One has perforce to build up one’s own resources: difficult even after only 10 or 15 years of marriage, it can seem an insurmountable problem after 45, 50, or more years of togetherness. While one misses the sharing and caring, the planning together and doing things together of everyday life, terribly; it is an added shock when the widow realises that there’s no one to quarrel with, no one with whom one can safely let off steam! Then, planning meals for oneself seems futile. Concerts, plays, parties, all become empty activities, performed as if in a void. Friends are kind but few have all that much time for a woman on her own.

If one is an elderly professional woman and still not retired, one is very lucky indeed. So are those who have creative hobbies, especially if these bring in an income, however small. For an affluent widow, especially if she is still able to maintain a car of her own, entertaining and being entertained do not loom large as problems. Bridge and mahjong, if she is that way inclined seem to be a great help.

Social work too can be a useful interest for an affluent but lonely widow, especially if it involves much sitting on committees with the concomitant socialising. Then, there’s travel both in India and abroad; and choosing from all the fascinating tours on offer is an exciting prelude to the travel itself. As in everything, money makes all the difference even to loneliness!

Helpage and other such organisations are, by and large, for those with few material resources and whose expectations, needs, wants and desires, are therefore limited. It is the elderly, middle-class widow, used to the good things in life, and who overnight is not only alone, but has to come to terms with rising costs and inflation all by herself, who is really cornered. She has to learn to manage with everyday upkeep, plus repairs and maintenance of her home, pay ever-increasing servants’ wages, electricity, telephone, gas and doctor’s bills, as well as find the wherewithal to eat and drink and buy medicines.

Then, there’s the matter of security. Not only does the perennial servant problem assume tremendous proportions when one is elderly and alone, but the convenience of a fulltime, live-in maid has in-built dangers. She may well let in undesirable boyfriends if her employer has gone out for the evening. And, apart from making merry in the flat/house, the friends may quite possibly be thieves and perhaps murderers. After all, hardly a week goes by without the horrid murders of elderly people, by servants, being reported in the newspapers.

So, making do with erratic part-time help seems the best option until one falls ill. Then, it’s either hospitalisation or professional nursing at home; or the first followed by the other. However, professional nurses have also been known to be thieves, and when one is alone and in bed it’s difficult to be as careful as necessary. But what are the alternatives to living a hazardous life alone?

Moving in with a child may be a happy choice, but not necessarily so. One may feel in the way, and most probably is. And if one’s burnt one’s bridges behind one and cannot move back to a place of one’s own, then everyday life can be one long term of attrition. One can if one’s living in a large and therefore somewhat inconvenient place move to a smaller easier-to-maintain one. But if it’s not in the same locality where the woman has built up an infrastructure of neighbourhood help, and banks and post offices are close by and co-operative, the move may be a challenge, or it may be traumatic.

An old-age home, even when it is one where the inmates pay, and often quite heavily, tends, in this country, to be full of restrictions. Going out is limited, and socialising with friends in the evening has to be strictly according to the rules. There used to be, in Calcutta, residential hotels where an old lady on her own could stay permanently and live more or less in the style to which she was accustomed, and with none of the hassles of everyday life. But no more.

So, perforce, an elderly widow continues to live alone, doing what has to be done and taking one day at a time. Perhaps it’s possible for her, even with limited means, to learn to be a counsellor and help where she can in the neighbourhood. Or she can decide to live dangerously and play the stock market! However, whatever one does or does not do, it is an inescapable fact that tiredness and inertia cannot be kept at bay forever: they creep up insidiously but surely, until it becomes increasingly difficult to do the simplest of jobs — like making tea. Now, the only option open to one, is to learn to mark time with grace.