60-OUT OF CITY

I am surrounded at this point with uncles and aunties who have retired or retiring.  There is much talk amongst them of buying or settling down in an old age home. No that’s not what it is called now, it is known as senior citizen home. A confusing decision for them to take on whether to lock their home or for many to sell their home in the city and move lock, stock and barrel to a senior citizen home. The marked difference is that they and not their children are taking the decision well before their legs give away. Perhaps to cross the bridge even before they come to it.

In my family of South Indians, the much talked of destination is Coimbatore where senior citizen homes are flourishing like never before. Nice ones most say.

At this point, other than old age, there are many reasons to think of buying or moving into a senior citizen home. A couple touching 60s, hale and hearty, have left their late 20s son to look after himself in Mumbai and shifted to a senior citizen home in Coimbatore. The reason is not yet about being old but not being young enough to enjoy city life.

Out of the many problems, traveling is a big one. It is expensive and cumbersome. Public transport like train and bus travel is tiring. Taxis and auto rickshaws are hard to get. And the private taxis like Uber and Ola, apart from being expensive, is app-based which is difficult for many seniors to operate. That puts many of them home bound with holy places, art and movies a very ‘distant’ dream. Even trying to be productive proves costly. Then the air is polluted and the roads are dangerous for walking with bikes and cars zooming at great speeds.

Adding to those woes is the rising cost of maids, what with salaried youth pampering them with many more thousand rupees.

So why live in the city is the question most ask and rightly so. As the period after immediate retirement is one where you want to truly enjoy your leisure time.

One can look at the idea of living in a senior citizen home positively or negatively. To my surprise, some weeks back I heard a very negative view from a priest performing the rituals of an old age family member who had passed away. While stressing on how important it is for children to take care of their aged parents, he said he advised a couple against moving to a senior citizen home. He told them they will be surrounded by depressing thoughts with everyone sad that their children do not take care of them. The couple decided against moving from the city to a senior home.

Maybe not the right way to look at the concept of Senior Citizen Homes as times have changed.  Children may love and care but their career and work takes them far away. We have cut off the joint family from our system or even brother and sister families living close by, so that has made it even more difficult.

Besides the senior homes are now also looked at as real estate investments. You buy an entire home or villa and you stay whenever you like. The cleaning, security, maids, etc is taken care of. Hence people look at it with triple benefits 1) real estate investment 2) flexi living whereby you can go out of the home and live with your children whenever you want 3) The home is spick and span whenever you come in.

While it may not be as depressing as the priest put it, I wonder though if old age will not catch up faster in a senior citizen home where there is more of the twilight life than the sunshine of children or young people. I believe the old need the young to feel younger and the young need the old to feel warmth and love.  It is so much more better for children to grow up with grandparents around.

But the uncles and aunties and friends I speak to say they are happy and busy. Attending mediation camps, music sessions, long walks, great meals and have many friends and a wider community. That makes it better than living in a cramped flat all alone in a city where anyways the grandchildren are far away.

An ideal situation would be to have schools and creches around these senior citizen homes where they can all cuddle up together and work for each other’s benefit. But life is never that ideal.

The big question though is whether at a later stage when your body and mind begin to fail, will these senior citizen homes actually take care of you? They may have medical facilities but not a full-time staff to take care of old people as in the true definition of old age homes.

It is a Catch-22 situation for the children and Catch-60 situation for those just retired.