Deachen Chorol
Even though she repeats the phrase, 'Shi-
a gortey enok ley' which means that her
death is much delayed, 89-year old Sonam Palkit seems strangely content, With a heavily wrinkled face, a toothless smile, her eyes light up child-like when offered sweets. Hailing from Hanisku village, she vividly recalls how after her siblings died, on a chance trip to Leh, she discovered rgan-stos-khang, the Ladakhi term for an old age home. She had remained single and rather than being a burden on her grandchildren, she took a decision to spend the rest of her life here.
That is how Sonam Palkit came to Maitri Old Age Home at Devachan Campus, Choglamsar. The home is part of a larger institution, the Mahabodhi International Meditation Centre, that houses a girls' hostel, the Mahabodhi residential school, meditation centre, charitable hospitable and a mobile clinic. She has since lost count of the years but is certainly amongst the oldest inmates. Unlike Sonam Palkit, another elderly woman from the village Phey, Abi Chozom, opted to stay with her family. She lives with her youngest son, but with both the son and daughter-in-law working and grandchildren going to school, she is alone at home; all day except for the Sundays and public holidays.
With Ladakh taking strides on the path of development, urbanisation is inevitable. There is a societal fall-out, a stress on the patterns on which traditional Ladakhi society has stood and sustained over generations. There has been a base of interdependence, an intricate system of relationships that is gradually giving way. Social norms ensured that old people live with their families but in a way that allowed space and independence to the younger generations. For instance, elderly people used to typically live in Khang-bu, or 'small house' that was nearKhang-pa or the 'main house'. This was a unique arrangement that allowed interaction across generations, shared celebrations without intrusion into each other's spaces.
However, things have been changing. According to Tsering Dolma from Spituk village, eight kilometres from Leh, the only reason why the elderly opt for an old age home is that they are neglected by their families. She would much prefer to stay with her family, but in case she faces neglect, would have no choice but to enter an old age home.
The story about how Rgan-stos-khang came to exist, itself speaks volumes. The moving spirit behind this was Padma Lhaskit, an abiley, the Ladakhi term for 'grandmother', who hailed from the village of Skyurbuchan. She had been under treatment at the Government hospital in Leh and was unfortunately abandoned there. Although she recovered, she had nowhere to go back to and thus resorted to faking illness in order to prolong her stay at the hospital. The staff took to her kindly and her hospital stay stretched for a period of seven long years! It was her initiative along with three other abileys like her that led to the establishment of the old age home in 1995 by Venerable Sangasena, a leading figure in the community, also the founder and president of MIMC.
Rgan-stos-khang is many things to many people. A home, a family apart from the one based on blood ties, a common space and time shared by so many previously unconnected people, now travelling this leg of their life journey together. While many of them have come to the place by the dint of circumstances, they are not despondent in fact, far from it. Seventy-two year old Ishey Spaldon from Nyerags symbolises the cheerful spirit. A nun, she has been at rgan-stos-khang since the past 21 years, never having visited her home even once. Asked whether she has fears, she laughs aloud and says that she believes she is not dying as yet, because she feels happy from the inside.
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