Society – The Beneficiary

Sadly, the rule of service says that Human beings are rendered productively inefficient post 60 years of their life. Candidly put they mean to say they are utterly useless. I stand to defy this thought, for I think they can be major contributors for general upliftment of the society.

Running on 60, one generally feels a sense of achievement, or probably a grief of underachieving for some. But at the end of all, with a touch of nostalgia, working professionals feel relieved of their individual offerings. What after that? A retiree has all the right in the world to relax, unwind, spend time with grand children, do things which otherwise they missed doing, walk around the park etc. Nobody can take away this basic right of theirs.

Thinking progressively, the years of experience and abundant knowledge should be put to right use. Today in India the age group of 16-35 form the major portion of the total population. Such a young country potentially can achieve the unachievable. With such a copious and rich talent in the offer, deprivation of facilities is a sad truth. Looking around today, where the nation is growing at a certain 6-6.5%, there is so much that could be done. Of which one of the major issues that the HRD is battling is provision of Basic Education. Though child labour is officially banned by the Government, it still exists in some pockets of the country. Each individual needs to understand that there is only so much the Government or an NGO can do.

Sitting at home, working around at one’s own pace and looking for ways to kill time, if the retiree would think of indulging into community service, what a pass time would that be. There are scores of children who are deprived of basic education. These children end up doing things which otherwise they shouldn’t be doing. If one wishes, a retired self can at least spend no more than 1 hour daily to teach these children. Forget teaching a class or a group, even if they impart education to 1 child, imagine the transformation and the difference it would create. So to speak, one could take ownership of counselling, teaching a child. The years of experience, accumulated wisdom would be really beneficial to children who otherwise would never get such an opportunity to learn.

As noble a thought it sounds , it is a durable task to accomplish. But if the seniors take time and counsel some of these under privileged, it can do wonders to the society. This action would go a long way in bolstering the Governments efforts in improving the literate population. Having said that, it’s not to blame the seniors for everything, it’s to say that the wealth of experience and skill could be used in a much better way.