Loneliness and alcohol drive elderly women in Pune to rehab

You'd expect them to frown upon the wild things that their children do.

Happy Mother's Day and all that, but times have tragically changed.

Caught in a social twister a bit late in life, 62-year-old Surekha Rao and 64-year-old Anita Bhise (both names changed) are taking baby steps out of alcoholism at the Muktangan De-addiction Centre (MDC) in Vishrantwadi.

Husbands to rescue

u00a0

Illustration: Sameer pawar

Their baffled husbands had got them admitted last month after detecting tell-tale signs -- a stubborn urge to drink through the day, furtive swigs from the bottle, tantrums. It all apparently started from social drinking at their husbands' parties.

Rao and Bhise -- from respectable neighbourhoods of Nigdi and Warje respectively, with husbands who retired from lucrative jobs -- are among a very small but worryingly growing group of aged, upper-middle-class women in the city and its urban neighbourhood who are getting hooked to alcohol. Incidentally, their children are settled in the US and Australia.

Social scientists fear that they represent the city's changing humanscape: a lonely, desolate place for affluent seniors, especially for those whose children have left the country for better paying jobs, leaving their parents without a social cushion.

Lonely in city

"Women who are dependent throughout their life on their husbands suddenly realise their worthlessness," said
Dr Ujjwala Nene, psychiatrist, KEM Hospital.

	u00a0
Seniors and city
Number of sr citizens in Pune: 3.5 lakh (approx) Number of women amongu00a0 city's sr citizens: 2 lakh (approx) Read Next Story CID schedule Halappa's investigation after Panchayat polls› Trending Stories Latest Photos Latest Videos Latest Web Stories ADVERTISEMENT Mid-Day Fast ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT