Are senior citizens treated well by society?
B. Lakshminarayanan Senior citizens have of late become a subject for discussion due to a variety of reasons. This paper recently published a report on the housing, medical care and legal rights of the elderly. Ever since I stepped into the league of “senior citizens,” I have been trying to understand the need for such a term, whether this term really helps those who are beyond 60 and what should have been done apart from just coining this term. In Tamil Nadu, the term ‘perisu’ is very commonly used for older people and that too, with extreme derision. Generally, all over the world, the categorisation of senior citizens is based purely on age. This varies anywhere between 55 and 65. A very painful definition of a senior citizen has been given as “a person who lacks basic motor skills and the ability to hear, drive, stand up straight, walk, think clearly, or provide basic financial support for him/her self.” But surprisingly, the term senior citizen is not used for those who are over 60
