Elderly Suicide: Breakdown of Traditional Support System

"Slipping quietly into the Night,
Quite sadly not getting it right.
She came crashing down with a thud,
Does it surprise us that nobody heard?"

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A few days ago, a 75 year old lady's body was found outside my apartment door, badly mutilated and at that juncture also unidentified. The building security and local police rang my bell, this was around 0330, in the deep sleep period just before dawn, and I stumbled out groggily. Initial reaction was to recoil back, when asked, "do you know this person"? Person? At that moment she looked very still, very obviously dead, and sadly, also like somebody had taken tomatoes and minced meat, stuffed them into a salwar-kameez, and beaten the whole lot with a baseball bat.

The police and security initially thought that somebody had killed her and left her there. 50 centimeters from my apartment door. As a single male, into Pune frequently, and working odd hours, I could see or over-sense the suspicion in their eyes when they entered my flat for a quick look around, with know-all looks at the empty beer cans lying near the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, I recovered my senses and went for a second look, and it suddenly occurred to all of us - this body had come from above. Where I live is an 11-storey building, and she was in what could be called the line of gravity, with no obstructions in between. Also, at that moment, I had a mental flashback on something that happened decades ago when a fellow seafarer went down about 20 meters into the hold.

A few minutes later, and she was identified - the mother and grandmother of some people who lived on one of the higher floors. And then the story came tumbling out - aspirational middle class, ready to emigrate abroad, elderly grandmother unwilling to move with them. Family decides that she can go to the native place then and live with relatives or at an old age home - and then the fatal tryst with gravity from 30 meters above, onto a hard, cold and unyielding cement floor. Right outside my door.

A few hours later, panchnama, photographs, white sheets, buckets of water, soap, squeezee - and its all over. The blood splatters and drops on my door still remain, and I don't have the strength or heart to clean them off.

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The deeper reason here is something we see all over India. Without a social support system from governance, and with a breakdown in the family based traditional support system, things are unravelling.

One had heard of younger people committing suicide in such a drastic manner, but now even the elderly?

More garden and galley gossip then emerges, but at the end of the day, it is the family that gets destroyed. And because we are then concerned about the living, we never talk about such things.

By 6am the same morning, there wasn't even a trace of anything left. Except the blood drop splatters on my door. Those, too, cleaned up by now I presume.

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