When Hiren Mehta started managing a day care program for seniors in Mumbai, he had certain ideas about what older Indians wanted. "We used to have spiritual discourses and old movies here originally," he says in his office next to a temple off a bustling side street in South Mumbai. "Then they said we don't want old movies. We want sexy ones like the young people watch." Mehta spiced up the movie selection and also added salsa classes. It is not my grandmother's India anymore.
Harmony Foundation, which runs the day care center does not even call them seniors. It calls them Silvers. Every year they give out the Silver Awards for exceptionally active seniors. Mehta showed me a calendar with the 2009 winners. Bhausaheb Thorat, 84, launched one of India's most massive tree plantation drives. Kambel Chulai, 69, designed eco-friendly crematoriums to help conserve trees. "Old age does not mean you have to just go to the hospital or the temple," says Mehta. "We want to celebrate age."
That is taking some adjusting all round. 80 million Indians are already over 60. But they are just starting to understand the power of those numbers. "We are not an organized sector," complains M R Parasuram sitting in his air-conditioned office in Bangalore. "We must show how much of a vote we command." Parasuram is 79. A retired industrialist, he comes to his home office every day at 10 am in a crisp shirt and tie. "I am still following the British style," he says with a smile. These days Parasuram is not running his business anymore. Instead he runs the Federation of Senior Citizen Forums, which tries to be a nodal agency for some 130-odd organizations scattered around the state working with senior citizens. "I have done donkey's work for 50 years. My children are settled. Now I have told them not to come to me for money," says Parasuram. "Now I earn the money. And I spend the money."
All of this is new territory for India. Though the welfare of older citizens is written into the Indian constitution, it is mostly on paper. For the lucky, old age was about grandchildren and religious hymns. For the unlucky, it meant being warehoused in one of the government's dreary homes for the aged or even cast out on the streets. But now a growing number of India's seniors are starting to take their future into their own hands.
After Usha Mantri retired from her job as a college professor in Mumbai she thought of settling down to life as a grandmother. Then a huge flood in Mumbai flooded her ground floor apartment. Five feet of water drenched all her possessions. Books her husband had written, unpublished manuscripts she had hoped to get published, just rotted away. "I could not do anything," remembers Mantri. "After that I thought whatever life there is, we must enjoy." For her that meant voluntarily choosing to leave the bustle of Mumbai and move to the Dignity Lifestyle Township a couple of hours outside the city. "Somewhere in the bottom of my heart I am not a big city lady," says Mantri. She saw the township when it was just being built and quickly chose a corner room. She misses her Hindi plays but enjoys the peace and quiet and picking up new skills like library work. "I did not come out of compulsion. My grandson is very fond of me," says Mantri. "I am not detached from family. But I am away. I can do whatever I want and I can enjoy."
Dr Murali Dhar, the resident psychiatrist at the township has noticed a clear difference between those who came to the township out of compulsion and those who came on their own, like Mantri. "Maybe 30 percent came here because they have no other place," he says. "Those 30 percent certainly miss their children more. They are depressed more." Dignity tries to market itself as "a hassle-free retirement township, not an old-age home." Spread over rolling green hills, with picturesque cottages with flowers painted on the nameplates, it is for the well-heeled retiree. Cottages can cost up to Rs 1.3 million ($28,000) with monthly fees of Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 (approximately $250). "We make sure they are pampered," says Dhar. That means movie nights, ayurvedic massages and a jacuzzi. A beautician comes once a month. There are drawbacks, he admits. The broadband has been down for almost a month. "It's hard to get the technician to come down from Mumbai," says Dhar.
Dignity's residents come from the upper strata of Indian society. And when they don't get the service they are used to, they are not shy about demanding it. "The expectations are high," says Dhar. "The women who move here are tired of housework and cooking. They want to be free."
The government might still only be paying lip service but the private sector is starting to take notice of the demands of India's seniors. Harmony's Hiren Mehta says he just came back from speaking at an architecture conference in Pune, where he spoke about how architects can cater to the needs of senior citizens. "Change started in the bathrooms. Now it's coming out to the bedrooms and staircases," says Mehta. Indian bathrooms are notorious for being wet and slippery. Now some houses are being designed with skid-free tiles and grab rails. "5-7 years ago hardly anybody would make gadgets that were silver-friendly," says Mehta. "Now there are companies manufacturing every thing from different types of walking sticks, to wheel chairs, even utensils. It's a growing market." Harmony is in fact, the brainchild of Tina Ambani, a former movie star now married to one of India's biggest industrialists, Anil Ambani.
These new facilities and amenities are starting to draw a trickle of Indian American retirees to India. Betty Kamath, 80, became a US citizen after she moved to California when her husband died. All her children were settled in the US. But when her rheumatoid arthritis started getting worse she decided she had had enough. It was getting difficult to navigate the stairs in her daughter's home in the Bay Area. She felt more and more dependent. And she knew she did not want to move to a nursing home in the US. "I saw the way the girls treated the older people. They are quite rude, they grumble if you call too much," she says. She decided to move back to Bangalore instead, to Cleta's, a home run by nuns. A big factor in that decision: she could afford a 24-hour attendant there.
Money certainly goes farther in India. Prithvi Raj, 65, lives on his American Social Security income in India. An engineer, retired from the Digital Equipment Corporation, he says he now lives a "simple life." A victim of Partition, his mother raised five children on a widow's pension. Now Raj is looking for spirituality in India though his daughter lives in Washington, DC. He says dealing with the bureaucracy is "horrible" but he is still more comfortable in India. In India it's also easier to indulge in his main vice--cigarettes. "I used to smoke 100 cigarettes a day," he says with a grin. "I have asthma. I have been hospitalized. I tell the doctor give me the strongest medicines because I won't quit smoking."
Many retiree-returnees do worry about health care facilities in India. Most old age homes, for example, cannot take care of Alzheimer's patients. But Janaki Iyengar, 75, decided she and her husband would take their chances in India although she is wheelchair bound. After almost 50 years in Britain, she felt taking care of her and her husband who has Parkinsons disease was too difficult for her sons. "I can't ask them to come and stay with us," she says. The couple moved into a high-end old age home with a nursing facility outside Bangalore. The room was remodeled to accommodate her wheelchair. "It's clean, it's neat, people are helpful," she says. She misses her English friends but says with a shrug, "You have to choose. And you have to accept." Her husband just had a hip replacement. Alone for now, Iyengar sits in her room watching the Discovery channel and listening to Carnatic music.
The returning seniors are able to take advantage of the rising power of the grey (or silver) economy. One clear example is the mushrooming of cataract surgery hospitals. Dr Irudaya Rajan, a demographer in Kerala, remembers when he was looking for a cataract surgeon for his mother 25 years ago, there were few facilities. Now they are everywhere. Likewise knee replacement ads are cropping up all over the cities, especially after former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had his knees replaced. But there are limits, says Rajan. He still doesn't see much interest in hearing correction surgeries, though that's much needed. "One woman told me she wanted her mother-in-law's eyes to be clear so that she can look after the baby and do the household chores. But she did not want her mother-in-law's hearing to be corrected."
India's seniors may not yet be ready to flex muscle like the American Association of Retired Persons. But that will happen, says sociologist Ashis Nandy. "The elderly are a vote bank. Their political significance is increasing," says Nandy. "At the moment they are not seriously considered in electoral calculations. But it will come. And I suspect there will be a scramble to provide facilities for the elderly."
M R Parasuram and his Senior Citizen Forums are ready. He has already started giving out senior ID cards to his members. Right now, he admits, they are not good for much. But he is building up his database of seniors, many of who are active and keen to work. His forum is trying to match up seniors with part-time jobs. "The movement has started," says Parasuram. "Things will improve. I hope to help as far as God's grace is there." n
Reporting for this feature was funded by a fellowship from the South Asian Journalists Association
