Autumn Sonata

Love can come knocking at any age, and the lonely elderly are embracing it wholeheartedly

- Swati Subhedar

EVERY morning and evening, Asawari Kulkarni and Anil Yardi, both 72, sit with their mugs of ginger tea by the window that overlooks a green patch in their colony in a quaint neighbourhood in Pune. The conversations are mostly casual, about everyday life, but sometimes, they plan their next holiday while sipping tea as they love travelling. On some lazy winter evenings, they just sit quietly and watch the setting sun play hide and seek with the trees.  

A few years ago, when Kulkarni used to live alone, such quiet moments used to make her anxious. An insurance agent, she had an active social life and many friends, but loneliness at home was her worst enemy. She got married in 1974 but separated from her husband. She remarried, however, her second husband passed away in 1997.

Despite the bitter and tragic experiences, she believed in the idea of love, so she joined Happy Seniors, an organisation run by Madhav Damle that helps senior citizens battling loneliness due to separation or the death of their spouses find like-minded companions. It was here that Kulkarni met Yardi, who was trying to make sense of his life after the demise of his wife in 2013. He could not deal with the pangs of loneliness.