Autumn Sonata

Is India prepared to meet the needs of its ageing population?

- Lalita Iyer

KAMAKSHI Narayanan (82) was looking forward to mornings of day dreaming. Advanced arthritis had severely impaired her mobility, although she is always seen hobbling around her home or garden in Kodaikanal, getting things done, or doing them herself. “It’s delightful to stay in bed in the morning, just dreaming of what is going to happen or what should be done that day,” she says. “But I know that unless I get up now, it’s going to be delayed every ten minutes or so, and it’s going to snowball through the day. So I get up and get on with it.” As a primary carer for her husband Narayanan, who is recovering from a hip replacement surgery, her work is cut out. Outsourcing caregiving is an option in theory, but getting a trained person to commit to look after an octogenarian in the hills is a challenge. Since Narayanan’s discharge from the hospital, as many as seven carers have come and gone.

Kamakshi is a trained homeopath, gardener, Tamil writer and translator, and social work enthusiast. But of all the byproducts that come with ageing, including social isolation, health and caregiving challenges, what stands out for her is “the physical inability to go ahead with what I am doing. Walking is an effort. Getting up is an effort...” she says.

The sort of solitude or alienation from one’s own body is also commonly interpreted as loneliness. One of the most pressing issues faced by the elderly, loneliness is said to be a quiet epidemic that accompanies ageing. But many, like Kamakshi, have found unique ways to cope. Through routines, humour, caregiving, faith, or simply the will to get through the day, they make meaning of their life.