Very close to where I now live outside Dehradun is a construction site for an enclave for “senior living”. Here, people of similar interests and it has to be said, similar wallet sizes, hope to live out their last days in comfort and some spectacular mountain views. The people who will live here want to do so on their own terms, reducing the burden and perhaps the guilt quotient for their children and their heirs.

But in today’s India, this is still a brave decision and an unusual decision. We are still lost in that space between familial duty, nuclear families and joint family mindsets. Looking after your elderly parents was automatic even four decades ago; now it can be a choice, a chore or a catastrophe.