THE OLD SETTLERS OF SIKKIM

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July 31, 2012, 12:51 am

Bangalore’s Seniors Head to Work as ‘Traditional Indian Family’ Dissolves

By Saritha Rai

Nishant KumarSenior citizens line up to register themselves at a job fair called “Jobs 60+” in Bangalore, Karnataka, July 21, 2012.

Sheela Rao, 67, has never written a résumé, attended a job interview or used a computer in her life. She has not ever worked in an office. Yet on a recent Saturday, Ms. Rao, a sari-clad, bindi-wearing homemaker, jostled with 1,000 other elders like her, some in their 80s, at a job fair named “Jobs 60+” in Bangalore.

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She can cook, sew and teach music, Ms. Rao told anybody who would give her a listen. She is healthy and can work hard, she said. “I desperately need a job and a steady income,” she pleaded with prospective employers.
A job fair for seniors is a paradox in a “young” city where multinational employers from Silicon Valley’s hottest social media firms and top Wall Street banks throng colleges to sign up those in their 20s even before they graduate.
The weekend gathering offered a glimpse into the social upheaval in Bangalore and other large cities where older Indians are buffeted by rising living and health care costs on the one side and fading support from their ambitious, globally mobile children.
Adding to the complexity, many Indians retire at the mandated age of 58 or 60, and social security covers only a sliver of the population.
This generation on the cusp of great change has not programmed their retirement finances properly, said Dr. Radha Murthy, an elder care pioneer and medical practitioner, whose nonprofit Nightingales Medical Trust organized the job fair. It is the first age band wedged between the traditional and the rapidly westernizing.
Ms. Rao has five children, all married, and lives in the home of her oldest daughter, a bank employee. There, Ms. Rao has gradually become confined to two rooms at the back of the house, she said. She cooks for herself and has very little independence. For instance, to listen to music she must wear headphones so as to not disturb the family.
Ms. Rao knows many others in the same boat. Across the street is an older neighbor who pines for the affections of her son who works in the United States.

Nishant KumarParticipants at the job fair called “Jobs 60+” organized for senior citizens, in Bangalore, Karnataka, July 21, 2012.

“Young people these days are arrogant because they earn big money. They are only interested in themselves,” rued Ms. Rao.
The 3,000-rupee ($54) monthly pension she receives after her banker husband’s death is barely enough to survive on, so she makes pickles and snacks to sell in the neighborhood. The income from such exertions too is patchy, so Ms. Rao went to the job fair to look for a steady job and a regular income.
There were dozens of companies looking for accountants, administrators, teachers and insurance salesmen. But, alas, nobody had a job for an elderly homemaker.
The large Indian family has all but disappeared, and the pressures of urban living are being felt in nuclear families, says Ashok Dey, chief executive of an upscale retirement community called Suvidha in the suburbs of Bangalore.
The elderly who expected to be cared for in their old age, as in the generations preceding them, are finding that their busy children are chasing their own careers and ambitions and have no time, inclination or money for them, said Mr. Dey, who said he and his affluent neighbors in the Suvidha community were not in that situation.
Dr. Murthy said, “It is an India where kids no longer want to spend the summer with the grandparents; they would rather spend it at Disneyland.”
At the senior job fair, a dozen young employees from a large multinational bank were volunteers, and they highlighted the age and wage contrast. One of them, Krutika Kuppuraj, 23, an analyst, was overwhelmed by the tales of despair around her. The Indian value system emphasized respect for elders, but that is eroding fast, said Ms. Kuppuraj.
A few of the volunteers were all too aware that the meager monthly pension that some seniors received is the equivalent of what they routinely spend at a cafe on a casual outing.
The massive turnout at Jobs 60+ may have revealed only the tip of the problem because India’s middle class is adept at keeping up social appearances. “Many middle-class Indians will not tell on their kids or let the ‘all-is-well’ facade slip,” said Dr. Murthy.
Until he retired recently, V. Mohan, 64, worked for three decades for a single employer, a university. That day at the fair, Mr. Mohan was not looking for a white-collar job. He was willing to settle for any type of work, he said.
His 6,000-rupee rent ($108) is eating into his 10,000-rupee ($180) pension, and that has made him desperate.
Of Mr. Mohan’s two children, one daughter has recently married and lives with her husband. He is supporting the other as she finishes up her Ph.D. Mr. Mohan insists that he does not want her money when she starts working.
Another recent retiree, Chandrajayanthi Mala, 60, a former medical counselor, was at the job fair because she was already gazing into the future. Her husband is on the verge of retiring. She knows many older people have been dumped by their kids who are in “sophisticated jobs.”
“The future is scary as there is no dignity for elders in the family, no importance to their ideas,” she said.
Her son will soon be married, and she prays that he and his future wife will take care of them. Not willing to totally rely on prayers, however, she decided to join the lines at the fair.
Unfortunately, a cruel outcome awaited many elderly job seekers who did not have any computer or other marketable skills.
In Bangalore, a job market long associated with young, fickle, itinerant workers, the fair’s organizers thought they had a unique proposition: the loyalty, experience and cost effectiveness of older employees.
Yet neither Ms. Rao nor Mr. Mohan made the cut.

Saritha Rai sometimes feels she is the only person living in Bangalore who was actually raised here. There’s never a dull moment in her mercurial metropolis. Reach her on Twitter @SarithaRai.