Old age woes of an Indian Senior Citizen

Somewhere on line it says that it will take 123 years for the average Indian to attain the standard of living of the present average American. I wish it were much much sooner. I am in my early sixties and considering the fact that the average age (average life span) of an Indian is just sixty six years I have not all that long to live. Be that as it may.

What I want to say is that whenever I read about the Medicare and Medicaid in the United States my mind is flooded with envy because in matters of health I am forced to depend solely on my predetermined fate which according to Einstein dances to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible piper!

I wish it were not so. But there is no help for it right now. All that I can say right now is that there is very little solace in the fact that our economy is growing at 9% or so and our exports will be US$400 billions by 2012 (or is it 2014?) by which time, if still around, according to statistics available regarding life expectancy, I shall be dipping into the barrel of my ‘bonus years‘.

To make matters worse, although I am categorised as a person who belongs to the 13% of our population written off as senior citizens and one who belongs to the 80% of citizens who live on $1 or $2 a day I find visiting a general medical practitioner a financial no-no mostly.

All I can take a rather sickly solace from, sans sickness benefit of any kind, is the fact that in spite of my own convoluted life style I am still alive and kicking and hope the invisible piper doesn’t change his tune too soon.

First it was a small minority of Maharashtrians who showed that they had it in for the migrants from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Later a West Bengal minister was heard making similar noises aimed at migrants from Rajasthan, especially Marwaris residing in that state.

God forbid, but if this trend continues and spreads throughout India coupled with the various seperatist movements already in place in various states, especially in the North (Kashmir) and the Northeast and the now dormant Khalistani movement in the Punjab as also the the North-South divide that came out so openly during the Ramsethu controversy, is this the nascence of the unravelling of India as we have known it since the advent of the British Raj. Is Churchill going to have the last laugh from beyond the grave after all?

This brings me to one simple question which is: Are the Hindus one nation per se or are they only one nation vis a vis Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh and the Muslim minority within India's borders?