DELUXE: Bangalore’s 2nd Innings offers all the facilities for modern living

At 88, Major General P.S. Kumar’s only option seemed to be to move into his son’s sprawling house in New Delhi. It was becoming difficult for him and his wife to live alone in their Bangalore flat. Kumar often fell ill, the domestic servant regularly did the vanishing act and the neighbours never offered to help. “We stuck on because we wanted to be independent,” says 67-year-old Lorna Kumar.

So when the Kumars heard of a resort-like senior citizens’ residential enclave called 2nd Innings that was launched in Bangalore last month, they signed up pronto. The couple will move into their one-bedroom cottage which overlooks landscaped gardens and palm trees growing around a pond in June next year.

The enclave promises the Kumars a ‘live-happily-ever-after’ life. The Gold category cottage that the old couple has booked comes with a split air-conditioner, a computer, an ISD phone line and a home theatre. The four-and-a-half- acre campus has a walking track, a gazebo where morning walkers can stop by for tea, lime juice and newspapers and a club with a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a library and dining facility.

Of course, comfort comes at a cost. The Kumars have to make a down payment of Rs 12 lakh and pay Rs 15,000 a month for as long as they live at 2nd Innings. But Lorna Kumar says it’s money well spent. “Living with children is no longer an option. They have a hectic work life. They can’t take time out for their own children, leave alone for us,” she says.

The Kumars have company. In the space of one month, 2nd Innings has sold nine cottages. Joseph Philip, Managing Director, 2nd Innings, says high-end senior citizen enclaves are here to stay. “In today’s double-income families, children only cater to the physical needs of elders,” he says. “Their emotional and psychological needs remain unfulfilled and loneliness looms large.”

Philip claims to cater to every need at 2nd Innings. The enclave will have an in-house counsellor whom the elders can turn to to unburden themselves.

Upscale residential enclaves for senior citizens are coming up in other cities as well. Romola Mitra, 78, says she felt a sense of homecoming when she moved to Calcutta’s The Retreat Senior Citizens Home after living alone for 22 years. Mitra’s UK-based son only made an annual appearance to check on her. “I feel secure and looked after here,” she says. The Retreat offers furnished, air-conditioned suites where everything down to the linen and toiletry is provided. Weekly health check-ups and monthly pathological tests are mandatory for all residents.

Pune-based woman activist Kalindi Deshpande enjoys living with people her own age at the city’s Athashri housing society for senior citizens. The complex has a gym, a garden, a lounge-cum-reading area and a community kitchen. In Delhi, a plush senior citizen complex, Utsav, will be ready next year. The complex offers the services of doctors, drivers, servants, a pharmacy and a round-theclock ambulance. Yoga and meditation sessions will be offered free. The flats are priced between Rs 9 lakh and Rs 15 lakh.

In Mumbai too, Dignity Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that works for senior citizens, will soon launch what it calls a “hassle-free retirement township” in Matheran, a hill station near the metropolis. The complex, to be ready by early January, will have a dining area, a gym, a swimming pool and specialised care centres for disorders like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease common in senior citizens.

So why are top-of-the-line housing meant for elderly people mushrooming? Says Arjun Ray, a member of the board of advisors of 2nd Innings: “It’s a fallout of economic globalisation and growing individualism. Everyone wants his or her own space, even older people.”

Another reason for the elderly to opt for such residential arrangements is that fast-growing cities like Bangalore have seen a marginalisation of old people. Over 80 per cent of Bangalore’s work force is below 40 years old. The Kumars are the only old folks living in an apartment complex in Bangalore’s upmarket Indiranagar colony. They see a generation gap being played out every day. “Youngsters rush past me on the stairs unaware that I might slip and fall,” says Lorna.

T he Kumars may be looking forward to a happy innings at the Bangalore old home. But Prof. Anand Inbannathan, associate professor, sociology, at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, says senior citizens’ homes remain the last resort for the traditional- minded Indian middle class. “It will take some time before the conventional Indian mindset of looking after old people changes,” he says.

However, Inbannathan adds that with the collapse of the joint family system, these old homes are becoming more acceptable. “It was easy to accommodate and look after the old in a joint family setup. Older people find themselves misfits in nuclear families,” he says. Old age homes that come with every comfort imaginable are often the more desirable option.

Additional reporting by Dola Mitra in Calcutta, Anirban Das Mahapatra in Delhi, Gouri Shukla in Mumbai and Tessy Koshy in Pune