At the Mercy of God

Guruvayoor temple serves as a refuge for the elderly abandoned or turned out by their children

Lakshmikuttyamma, 80 years old now, had three children—one son and two daughters. The son died in an accident in 1992. The elder daughter, a nurse, married a doctor from Karnataka and settled in Mangalore. Lakshmikuttyamma, widowed 30 years ago, lived with the younger daughter in Kerala’s Kottayam district.

Hers was not an easy life. Her son-in-law was an alcoholic who used to beat her and demand money. She had forty cents of land and a house. They wanted her to hand over the property to them. “All my property would have gone to them anyway after my death. My only son is dead, and I have not heard from my elder daughter. But they did not want to wait till I died. I lived with this harassment for years,” she says.

One day in December 2004, she was tortured and locked in a room for three days and given almost no food. On the fourth day, she was let out.  When her daughter and son-in-law went out on some errand, Lakshmikuttyamma left home and sought admission at a government hospital. She was very weak and bore wounds on her body. She spent a month at the hospital. “I then boarded a bus to Guruvayoor [in Kerala],” she says.

She lived on the temple premises, sleeping in some corner of its tiled floor with many others like her. Like all places of worship, Guruvayoor has a large floating population. There is food, freedom, devotion and recreation here. The old men and women often do not want to go back. They find life at the temple better than with their children. A couple of weeks ago, Laxmikuttiyamma was shifted to an old-age home run by the Guruvayoor municipality, and she is not happy. “I am not allowed to go out. They curtail our freedom. They don’t even give us sufficient food.”

Temple towns are known to be easy resorts for those who don’t want to assume responsibility for their elderly parents. Recently, there have been reports in the media of abandoned parents living on the premises of Madurai temple in Tamil Nadu. The world’s largest religious carnival, the Maha Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, is known for the abandonment of the old. The availability of food at temples is one reason why people often leave their parents there.

Guruvayoor is one of the most popular Hindu places of worship in south India. The police, activists and officials of Guruvayur Devaswom Board—the body that looks after the temple administration—say there is an alarming rise of old people being abandoned or coming here to escape their children.

It was 23 years ago that 82-year-old Ponni was brought to Guruvayoor from her residence in Kottayam for a visit by her son and family. They left her in a crowd and disappeared. She, too, was recently shifted to the shelter home following local media reports about ageing parents abandoned at the temple. When I meet her there, she is reluctant to speak. Her caretakers said that her son had abandoned her; Ponni tells me that she has neither husband nor children. She tries to look indifferent, but, as we talk, she cannot control her tears.

This is not only the story of mothers. There are many fathers, uncles and aunts abandoned in the twilight of their lives. The story of Ramachandran Nair is similar to that of Lakshmikuttyamma. He is 71 years old, and hails from Thiruvilwamala in Palakkad. He was a stenographer at the Bombay High Court. A bachelor, Nair dedicated his entire life to taking care of his widowed sister, her six daughters and three sons. He spent all his earnings on their education and marriages. “I spent even the last penny in my pocket. When they realised there was nothing left with me, they started showing their true colours. One day, my sister told me that life had become expensive and she was unable to provide me food. I left home that day,” he says.

Nair directly came to a shelter home at Guruvayoor recommended by a Panchayat member. He did not have to sleep on the tiled floor of the temple like many others. “All of them (other old people) are uneducated. I have nothing to communicate with them. Here I have frequent visitors even from outside Kerala,” he says.

Nair does not blame his sister or her children. “If this is what is destined, nobody can change it,” says the 71-year-old, “I used to think that I would not have been thrown away had I married and had children of my own. But I realised how wrong I was when I reached here. Most of the people living in and around the temple had children of their own.” He now often gets work as a translator for visitors who don’t know the local language. “Most of them know either English or Hindi; I am the only person who can translate,” he says. It helps maintain his self-esteem.

No one really has any idea of the number of abandoned old people who have made Guruvayoor their home. “It is not possible to collect the data. As you see here, there are hundreds of people sleeping on the premises of the temple. Many of them are devotees who have come for a short visit. Most of them are old. How can we identify an abandoned person in this crowd?” asks RK Jayaraj, assistant commissioner of Police.

Joffi Chovannur, a journalist who runs a local cable network that has been consistently reporting the plight of the elderly at Guruvayoor, does not entirely endorse this view. “It is difficult, but not impossible. If there is effective networking between the municipality, Devaswom Board and police, the data can be gathered,” he says. Chovannur says that it is the responsibility of the Devaswom Board to ensure the elderly proper shelter and medical aid. The Board says they are unable to do this. “If we provide shelter to all those who end up on the premises of the temple, it would send out the wrong message. They will dump old parents at the temple without any guilt. The number of such people being abandoned will only increase,” says T Chandramohan, chairman of the Devaswom Board.

Most stories here have a similar narrative: of the elderly being cajoled to give away their property to their children, and abandoned. Kalyanikuttyamma is 71 years old. She arrived at the temple 20 years ago from Thrissur. She, too, was picked by a recent rehabilitation drive by the municipality, and stays at the shelter. She lived with her younger son before coming to Guruvayoor. “His wife disliked and harassed me. My son was unconcerned. One day, she served me food, it tasted strange. After a few minutes, I felt nauseous and started puking. I realised she was trying to poison me.”

Jayaraj has initiated a programme titled Sneha Sparsham to create a network of senior citizens in Guruvayoor. He observes that abandoned parents typically blame the daughter/son in-law, and rarely find fault with their own children. “In fact, the daughters-in-law who harass them only do it for their husbands,” he says.

Rajamma, who is 81 years old, arrived at Guruvayoor 17 days ago. She used to live with her husband in her home in Chettikkulangara in Alappuzha district. Her sister died some years ago and her niece invited the couple to live with them. She advised them to sell their property and deposit the money in a bank. “I didn’t realise it was a trap. Soon, she started asking for money. The first time, she asked Rs 50,000 for her son’s admission. On another occasion, she demanded Rs 25,000 for her husband’s business. She found fault with whatever we did. Finally, we left home and sought shelter in an old-age home nearby. She made no attempt to meet us. Both of us were happy there,” says Rajamma. But her husband died, and she could not bear to remain at the old-age home without him. She came to the temple. She slept on the temple grounds for a couple of days before the police picked her up and took her to a nearby private shelter home run by a retired teacher.

Lack of coordination between the Devaswom Board, the municipality and the police is evident. The shelter run by the municipality has only 21 inmates, while the buildings can accommodate about a hundred. The municipality says that the Devaswom Board should take on more responsibility for the elderly, as the latter provides food to inmates.

It is debatable whether putting hundreds of old people in an old-age shelter is a solution. Most do not want to be cooped up inside. Outside, they enjoy the mobility and freedom their children denied them. Thrice a day, they get meals from the Devaswom Board. At the temple, there is music and dance every day, and the steady thrum of pilgrims and devotees. Their abandonment is tragic, but the fact that they have found some comfort must count for something.

GodGuruvayoor TempleKerala