Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad

6 Living Alone as a Way of Life

6 Living Alone as a Way of Life Consider four brief examples: “Death from Loneliness at Eighty” reads one newspaper headline. A man’s only son—an Indian Institute of Technology graduate—has settled in the United States. The story reports that the old father “jumped off the landing between the 8th and 9th floors, ending a solitary existence. . . . Neighbors said the loneliness was probably too much for the octogenarian to bear, a condition not uncommon in a city from which the young who will take care of the old are increasingly being driven away for lack of opportunities” (The Telegraph 2003a). Narayan Sarkar, at age seventy, is a retired engineer who lives alone with his wife in their spacious south Kolkata home, their two married children settled in the United States. Although proud of their children’s professional success abroad, he mourns their absence: “In our families, we raised our children—why? Our idea, our dream was that when we grew old, our sons and daughters-in-law would serve us (seva karbe). And it is our dream, and a natural thing, to hope for this, to want this. We did this for our parents, and they for theirs.” Yet Viraj Ghosh, seventy-two—whose only son, an economist, has also settled in the United States—proclaims: “At this age, it’s better to live separate. . . . If an old man says that he needs to have his son live with him, then the son won’t advance, and the country won’t advance.” He resides with his wife in a flat their son has purchased for them in one of the new modern high rises springing up in south Kolkata, and Viraj-da spends hours each day socializing with friends, exercising at the apartment complex ’s gym, taking vigorous walks outdoors, meditating, reading, and playing music. “I am the happiest man in the world, living in heaven! I won’t live anywhere other than here, surrounded by my circle of friends.” Responding to the growing number of middle-class elders living far from junior kin, the Agewell Foundation is a Delhi-based NGO that has sprung up to offer elder-care counselors for hire. Agewell offers services 2-LAMB_pages_133-342.indd 172 5/13/09 3:35:36 PM  Living Alone as a Way of Life such as visits to chat over tea, escorts to the doctor or late-night wedding receptions, and the promise of presence at the time of death. NRI (nonresident Indian) junior kin who are able to supply money but not time or proximity can fund such services. Director and founder Himanshu Rath explains: “Imagine the counselor to be like a son . . . who takes the place of the natural child and performs the same duties for his elderly charge as a son would do.” He adds: “A sad situation indeed where children cannot gift their parents’ time. But this is a contemporary reality that has to be faced.”1 In addition to moving into old age homes, increasing numbers of seniors among India’s urban middle classes are also now living alone, in an arrangement that many describe as “unnatural,” even “impossible” or “unthinkable” (asambhab), very “Western,” and distinctly “modern.” Abundant middle-class flats and large ancestral homes in Kolkata now house merely one to two persons—elders living singly, with a spouse, or with a live-in servant. Among the cosmopolitan Kolkata middle classes that this project focuses on, the common assessment is that the majority of families now have children living and working abroad—in cities such as Chicago, Boston, Houston, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai—or elsewhere in India’s major cosmopolitan business centers, like Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi. As with the rise of old age homes, much ambivalence surrounds this trend of independent, non–joint-family-based living. For some, living apart from children is part of a deplorable, poignant process of the waning of Indian traditions and values. From this perspective, living in a multi-generational, reciprocal family is a fading yet precious part of a more Indian, spiritual, slow-paced, materially humble, intimate, and emotionally sustaining lifestyle. Yet other interpretations of the trend are more positive. Like Viraj Ghosh, some deem that living separately can help both children and the nation “advance”—professionally and materially— bringing prestige to a family as well as to the nation of India. Living independently can also foster aged and gendered egalitarianism, and “freedom” from constraining traditional mores and tensions. It can...