Letters to the State 3

Dear Punjab,

Lambi Lambi umar hove teri!

I wish you all the best always, today and tomorrow. I am so thank ful to you for giving me a pension in my old age. My name is Umro, and I don’t know if I am close to 75years or 80 years but definitely can feel the creak in my bones and every part of me hurts. I walk weirdly, like a pendulum trying to walk in a way that is least painful to me, my hair are grey, white wispy and I guess I am bald now.

Once, I had the best eyesight but now it’s failing and now cannot see as well and some portions are grey and hazy.

I don’t know how to put this across; it is a matter of shame, intense and immense shame. One does not go around talking about one’s private household matters in public. That was one of the unwritten codes explained to us when we were growing up.

But as, its between you and me, I need to tell someone. I am afraid the pension that I get every month ensures that I live and it ensures that I do not die. I am only valuable to my son, oh my precious son who I gave birth after five daughters so, so that the family name may carry on . The Rs 650, that I get ensures that my son takes me to the panchayat ghar to get the money after putting my angootha and then if I try to keep some money with me, I am hit and its taken away forcibly.

Rest; of the month I am only given a meal a day, so that indigestion doesn’t happen. My tea that I am so fond of is watered down, as milk is so expensive. My clothes are in tatters and all I have is one good suit.

Why don’t you save the money and not give us pension? Just make old age homes, so we may all live in dignity and not of this noose where we are only given importance to the day when we receive pension?

I am tired, broken and just want to die. That would give me deliverances 650 doesn’t define nor is my value. I am worth more.

Teri Maa.