Of learning to respect elders
A report in the print media suggests that some senior citizens of Sivasagar were humiliated by some ONGC officials. It so happened that the eighth biennial conference of the Assam Senior Citizens’ Sanmilan was to be held at Sivsagar on February 16 and 17 in the auditorium of ONGC. The retired officers of ONGC, who are members of the Sanmilan, had been entrusted the responsibility to finalize the deal with the ONGC authority. Accordingly, the ONGC authority assured the members that the auditorium would be available for the conference. But at the eleventh hour, the deal was cancelled for reasons best known to the ONGC authority, and the organizers were left in the lurch. At a time when the international bodies attribute due importance to the senior citizens, when the Government of India too has brought in so many benevolent schemes for senior citizens, the humiliation meted out to these elderly persons smacks of arrogance of the ONGC officials. Perhaps this arrogant lot of ONGC is under the impression that they would never grow old. Their insult to the senior citizens is construed to be an insult to the people of Assam. May good sense prevail on this irrational lot of ONGC, who do not know how to respect elders.
Ashok Bordoloi,
Dibrugarh.