GOLD AGE

India's booming silver economy—spanning products, services and experiences tailored to senior citizens—is reshaping what it means to live one's sunset years

- BY POOJA BIRAIA

Ask Vandana Sawant, 82, how she is, and she responds with a smile. “Main mast hoon [I am doing great],” she said. Living in Mumbai’s Sion with her daughter, Sawant’s days revolve around a place she hasn’t missed in 14 years—Adhata Trust, a community-based initiative that works closely with senior citizens. It is here that she paints, dances, acts and simply shows up as herself. “Adhata has given me an identity that goes beyond my kitchen, which I had become a slave to for most of my life,” she said. “It brought me from the kitchen to the stage. I spent my entire life running behind my kids, husband, family, and then at the age of 68 I found Adhata.”

What followed was a transformation Sawant hadn’t imagined possible in her later years. “The first time I learnt how to dance on stage was at 68. I experienced that kind of freedom for the first time,” she said. Today, her world is filled with rehearsals, friendships and small joys she once never had the time or permission to pursue.

More than activity, it is the sense of belonging that anchors her. “I have found so many friends,” she said. “I feel valued, seen and acknowledged—that too in the last leg of my life.”

At a modest fitness studio in Mumbai, Anita Gupta, 75, moves with careful intent, lifting her feet over a line of low hurdles, pausing between each step to steady herself, her body swaying slightly before regaining balance. The exercise is simple, almost childlike in design, but for Gupta, it represents something far more hard-won: control over a body that had once stopped responding the way she needed it to.

Living in Chembur with her daughter and grandchildren, she had gradually withdrawn from physical activity as spinocerebellar ataxia, a genetic disorder, began to affect her balance and mobility. “In India, gym trainers are not geared towards senior citizens,” rued Gupta. “They only care for young adults. But here at Golden Hearts, there is a space for older people like me.”