The Phone Call Of Senescence!!

It was my weekly off and the family had lunch together..My parents sat in the hall and were watching news. I came back to my room and started surfing the internet due to boredom.. I don't like watching news channels per se now.. as they have been speaking only about corona and nothing positive... It must have been quiet some time and my phone rang... I looked at it and saw it was my mother.. I know it's a bit weird.. but this is a way we have adapted to communicate when we are not in the same room, as most of the time I am on calls discussing issues and this way she doesn't have to shout out loud to convey something... I picked up the call.. and my mother on the other end said... '' Play a game of ludo with me na''.. I said 'Okay..I am coming right away..' I went in the hall and we played a game or two..Frankly, I play fair to maintain the integrity of the game.. Initially my mother didn't kill my token out of love, but now watching me showing no mercy on her tokens... She kills my tokens too..😄 Most of the times, I win.. but the amount of happiness I see on her face when she wins is priceless.. She smiled in sheer happiness like a kid who received a big Dairy Milk chocolate, out of a sudden.. like she had won a trophy.. I looked at her and a question ran across my mind... Can a senior citizen behave like a kid again?? The answer was right in front of me.. That night as she was sleeping besides me.. I looked at her face.. and remembered all the moments where she behaved like a kid.. To my surprise.. there were more than I had expected.. That day when she called to play the game, I realised.. in my self created world.. I have subconsciously distanced my parents... I mean physically they are in front of me.. but emotionally am I still connected to them as I was, when I was a 10 year old? I am so engrossed into my world.. making an image of myself.. struggling to be a constant contributer in my friends circle, in my office circle, in my social circle.. but I haven't literally given this a thought, of what my parents are feeling right now.. I have observed this one thing though, that whenever I ask them about some memory of their childhood, about what their hobbies were that time.. any funny incidents in their college or school.. or any memorable incident of their worklife.. I see them glowing and so keen to tell about it as if they waited for this moment..for us to ask them about their lives... They have so many memories to share and everytime they start speaking I could see the kid again.. just as a kid tells the parent all about what had happened throughout the day... When she called, I could feel that sense of boredom in her voice.. how I had ignored it all this while.. Perhaps we started communicating with the outer world so much that we forgot that parents too need us to communicate with them..

As a child I always thought parents never make a mistake.. As I grew up.. this thought changed.. as I saw my parents making mistakes... Some of them so silly as a kid.. But then I finally understood.. it's fine after all.. They are humans too..and humans of all ages make mistakes.. They say as human beings grows old, they tend to behave like kids again.. I see these two kids at home.. sometimes by mistakenly breaking glasses or plates just because their grip has now weakened.. sometimes struggling to read even bold letters.. sometimes baffling to understand how a phone works.. sometimes failing to differentiate between good and bad people.. sometimes not be able to sleep properly..eat properly...due to babysitting,  sometimes having a prolonged ache but not discussing with anyone.. It's so difficult to understand what our parents are going through at this age.. but then I think about how our parents managed to communicate with us when we were not even able to speak a letter... and so a promise I make to myself.. to be there for them more often.. party with them.. read out jokes to them.. ask them for their advises more often..speak to them as much as possible.. ask them about their lives.. go out on trips with them.. do household chores more often.. give them a foot massage every week at least..make them feel more loved.. more respected.. more important.. To do so much more than I ever did... Because this is the only time when the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent!!