Why we started.

I have always had a soft corner for the elderly, perhaps from growing up around my grandparents. A 93 year old neighbour of mine in Mumbai had just lost his companion, yet he still had the energy for the most wonderful conversations about his life. I feel that same bond with my husband’s grandmother. We talk about everything, her family, her fears, her stories, and I come away having learned something new every time.

She is the one who made me see it plainly. The elderly are lonely. The world has changed faster than anyone warned them, it has moved on, and somehow no one gave them the memo. What they need is not only care. They need company. That is why I started Elderworld.

I never met either of my grandfathers, and though both my grandmothers were alive, I never really grew up with them, not the way friends described their long afternoons of stories and being spoiled. I always wondered what that felt like.

What I did have was a knack for making older people laugh. Every time a bit of my nonsense cracked a smile on an elder’s face, something in me came alive too. There is a particular light in an elderly person’s eyes when someone simply sits with them, with no agenda and nowhere to rush off to. I think I chased that light long before I understood why.

Elderworld is, in a way, me getting the grandparent time I never had, and giving the same unguarded warmth back to people who were once someone’s grandparent. When I think about my own old age, I know that together is the only way any of us get through it well. Independence is precious, but it is not the same as being alone.