The Concept of Community Senior Living in India

The concept of community senior living or senior citizen living is a recent

phenomenon in India. Prior to this the joint-family system of life seemed to

work perfectly well. Most people were part of extended joint families

comprising grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins all living

together. While this system had its own advantages like providing around the

clock security and ready baby-sitters for families that had infants, privacy was

something that was quite hard to find.

With the evolvement of the concept of nuclear families, and ambitious young

men and women seeking greener pastures abroad, the idea of exclusive senior

citizen communities living in groups of likeminded people became quite

popular. These settlements took care of not just the basic needs like food and

shelter but went a step further and provided personalized medical care and

attention.

Minor details like housekeeping was taken care of, and the leisure time could

be gainfully spent either browsing through the books in the library, browsing

the Internet, or playing a game of tennis (for the fitter people in the group) or

simply settle down for a game of carom, chess or bridge.

Most of these senior citizen homes went a step further to create a sense of

staying in a home away from home for the senior citizen living in the

community. The festival season was given great importance to, starting with the

Dussehra festival, otherwise popular known as kolu or navarathiri, which was

celebrated for a period of nine days, culminating in Vijayadasami.

These senior citizen housing settlements believe in celebrating many other

festivals like Pongal and Diwali as well with great fanfare. The residents never

feel they are away from home, actually they seem to enjoy these festivals a lot

more as they get to spend time with likeminded people belonging to more or

less the same status.

Dance and music also seem to be part and parcel of the festive activities, where

youngsters visit these people and participate in the various cultural events

organized thoughtfully by the management of most retirement homes that dot

the landscape.

Of course, the elderly mamis living in the group turn out looking really smart in

their colourful Kancheepuram silk saris and show their handiwork through the

colourful kolams that have intricate designs and patterns.

The men folk are content to be observant bystanders, though they would never

want to miss the variety of sundals that are offered as prasadam. While the

womenfolk exchange thamboolams and manjal and kunkumams, the men

indulge in idle gossip covering what’s the latest in the US where their children

live.

Author bio

Ananya Shelters through its signature project Ananya’s Nana Nani Homes

envisages an adorable residence for the retired with best ever modern day

amenities and dedicated residential services to make life after 50s stress free,

self-reliant and enlivening.