To have and to hold-OxBig News Network

Fifty-seven senior citizens have gathered in Satvik Valley Resort, Loni Kalbhor village, about 25 kilometres from Pune. Tourists mostly come here to visit the ancient Ramdara temple, built on a hill, where Hindus believe Rama and Lakshmana visited during their exile. But this is not a religious gathering. Nor is it a bunch of fitness enthusiasts, who come during the monsoon to trek up through the greenery. These are single people, here to meet each other for marriage, or a live-in relationship, or a long-term commitment, as they live out life after 60.  

Arvind Karmarkar, 64, who works as a consultant export enabler, chortles as he says, “I hope to find my Sita soon.” He has been looking for a partner to share his life with since 2021. “I got divorced in 2011, due to differences in ideology. Since then, I have been a single parent to our only daughter,” he says. In 2021 Karmarkar’s daughter moved to the U.S., and he began feeling lonely. “There has not been anyone to talk to even about the basic things in life or share a few laughs with while watching a movie or reading a book. I hope I meet someone likeminded soon.” 

Pune-based Madhav Damle Foundation, which works towards women and child development, runs Happy Seniors, a matchmaking programme for those over 60. They conduct meet-ups every fortnight, and claim to have helped 90 couples find companionship, over the last 14 years. Of these 14 have chosen to be in live-in relationships and the rest have married. 

It’s about 5 p.m., as the attendees slowly gather, chairs are arranged, but interaction is not easy; many seem reticent and women and men occupy opposite ends of the seating area. A few women are wearing high heels and make-up, ready for a party. It takes one woman to say, “Let’s play some music and dance.” The Happy Seniors team plays a Marathi song, and a few women get up to dance; some men join in.

One of the women, finds a puppy and starts to play with it and sing to the music sitting on her chair. Watching her from across, a man, holding another puppy, approaches her and they slowly exchange laughs and play with the pups. As the ice breaks, a circle is formed and most have started dancing the garba. Beverages and snacks start rolling in as the evening progresses. 

In Maharashtra, single seniors, often lonely when they lose family members, are looking at a life of companionship in the years they have left, despite various challenges. The World Health Organization has put life expectancy in India at 69 years for women and 65.8 years for men.

Helping find companionship  

Founder of the organisation, Madhav Damle, 72, says that while working for 12 years with elderly people in old-age homes and ashrams, he saw the emotional and social burden of loneliness. He remembers a senior trying to take his life once. Shaken by the incident, he decided to add senior remarriage to their care portfolio.

After they helped two couples remarry, the concept faced resistance. “The children objected, and there was a stigma around remarriages at a later age,” says Damle, adding that they are sometimes boycotted by friends and neighbours or not allowed to participate in family rituals. Added to that were disputes over property and inheritance among children and the remarried couple if they decided to part ways. So in 2012 he began to suggest live-in relationships as an alternative, but, “It drew criticism from people and political outfits who called it inappropriate in our society.” Damle says a part of the process has been counselling sessions at social gatherings such as the one at to Ramdara, to help change people’s minds about long-held beliefs. 

Hema Yadav, 39, director of the organisation says that they help draft a contract between the partners that gives them clarity on how their relationship with play out. The informal agreement deals with daily interactions and responsibilities: daily, periodic, and medical expenses; property rights; a physical relationship, and responsibilities to their own parents and children.

While there are a few remarriage services like Chennai’s Vasantham Remarriage Service and apps like SecondShaadi, a service dedicated to senior marriage is rare. The Anubandh Foundation in Ahmedabad that has been operating for 25 years now is one.

Acceptance and inheritance  

Dhayari, a Pune suburb, about 10 km from the city centre, at the foothills of a section of the Western Ghats, live Bhaskar Kulkarni, 61, and Hemangi Butte, 54. Married in October 2024, they now live in a 4,000 square foot bungalow that Kulkarni once occupied with his first wife of 30 years. In 2021, she died of a COVID-19-related infection.

Bhaskar’s sons, both married, had lived with him. “Despite living under the same roof, I was lonely, as there was no one to share the small things that happen in daily life,” says Bhaskar, sitting next to Hemangi as they eat poha and tea for breakfast.

From their expansive living space filled with curios, a sweeping spiral staircase leads to the bedrooms upstairs. There is a corner where Bhaskar’s first wife’s portraits have lived for four years, with flowers and a garland, almost like an alter. 

“If my children think that I have forgotten their mother, they are wrong. If she was my past, my reality, so is Hemangi, who is my present,” he says. His sons moved out after the wedding. However, Hemangi and Bhaskar were clear that neither of them was interested in each other’s property.   

Hemangi had lost her doctor parents who used to run a 15-bedded hospital at a prime location in Pune. Both her brother and sister have been in the USA and Canada respectively, and she looked after the hospital’s operations and administration. Living alone in her 7,500 sq ft home on the third floor of the hospital building left her lonely. 

A paper published in 2023 in the journal BMC Geriatrics titled ‘Living arrangement of Indian elderly: a predominant predictor of their level of life satisfaction’ says that “Living alone was associated with low level of LS (life satisfaction). Co-residing with a spouse was associated with a higher likelihood of reporting high level of LS.” Those with low life satisfaction reported poor health and depressive symptoms, found the study done in India.

After breakfast, the couple has moved on to the veranda that faces a mango trees. There’s a swing here and couch to watch sunset. As they pet their dog, Hemangi says, “I have friends, but one still needs someone to call their ‘home’ and ‘family’. I realised I needed that more than ever after my parents passed away and we shut the hospital. After dating for over a year, we got married in the presence of family and friends.” When they were dating, she had been bedridden with a spinal cord injury, and Bhaskar looked after her, she says. She has rented out the hospital space to an old-age home. 

Nilesh (name changed to protect identity), 65, aretired Mumbai police officer, had lost his wife in 2019. His three children are married and live across the city, leaving him lonely. “I had spent days and months without talking to anyone, and retirement made it worse. It felt like I had forgotten how I sound like when I speak,” he recalls. 

Two years later, through a friend, he met Manju (name changed to protect identity), 63, a retired college professor, who had lost her husband a few years ago. After dating for a year, Nilesh and Manju decided to be together for the long term. He spoke to his children about his decision, but they did not take it positively. “Only Manju’s daughter encouraged our decision,” he says.

They had initially thought of living in, but, “Since society looks at women in live-in relationships questionably, I wanted to marry Manju and bring her home as my wife,” says Nilesh. “We got married in December last year without the approval of our children. We hope they come around some day,” says Nilesh.

The couple go everywhere together, for walks, yoga, movies, to the grocery shop. “That is all we need — companionship at this age,” says Manju.  

According to the Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections for India, there were nearly 138 million seniors in India in 2021 (67 million males and 71 million females). This is expected to increase by around 56 million in 2031, the report says.

Loneliness and love  

At the Amrutvel Elder Care Centre in Pirangut, 20 km away from Pune city, Milind Bembalkar, 64, is busy jotting down a list of sewing machine shops nearby. Dr. Nanda Shivgunde, 61, the founder of the centre wants to buy one. The centre, surrounded by trees, takes care of bedridden patients, an old age home, a paralysis and physiotherapy unit, and a naturopathy centre. It has been over two years since they met each other and have become partners in work and in life.

Milind Bembalkar and Dr. Nanda Shivgunde in pune.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI

For 35 years Bembalkar had been based in Latur, running a workshop that manufactured sugarcane factory equipment, jointly with his wife and older brother. Five years ago, he lost his wife to breast cancer and his brother to lung fibrosis. His older daughter, an IT engineer, lives in Pune, while the younger one lives in Boston. When he moved to Pune about three years ago, he met Dr. Nanda through a common friend.

Dr. Nanda was herself lonely, after spending two decades with her husband, who had dementia for 20 years, who passed away three years ago. She had been a part of a family-run care centre in Solapur for over three decades, and moved to Pune to start her own centre in 2025.

“It has been a dream to start my own care centre in Pune, and with Milind around, always happy to accompany, everything has worked out well. In any partnership or friendship, if the person lets you to be, and does not try to alter you, you feel free to breathe and live in it,” shares Dr. Nanda, who remembers that her husband was like Bembalkar. 

For Bembalkar, personal space and independence is very important. He grew up seeing his mother working and being independent. “Usually, men tend to be demanding and burdening the women in their lives with unrealistic expectations and fixated gender rules. Our children have encouraged our friendship, and they feel happy to see their parents have some company now,” he says. 

Dr. Prasun Chatterjee, a Professor at the Department of Geriatric Medicine at the National Centre of Ageing, and the Director of WHO’s Collaborating Centre for Healthy Ageing in India, says that globally, the 80+ age group is the fastest growing population. They experience isolation as their because of shrunken and dispersed families. “By 2030, one in 6 people will be elderly and by 2050, this will rise to one in 4. By 2050 the paediatric (0 to 14 years) and geriatric (60 and above) populations will be the same,” he adds. 

Navigating interpersonal spaces  

Niteen Ganpatrao Savagave, 62, a retired engineering college professor, and Sadhana Niteen Savagave, 57, hit it off the day they met at Madhav Damle Foundation’s office, when Niteen, who is divorced, had come from Sangli with his sister to get himself enrolled for remarriage. 

Sadhana Niteen Savagave and Niteen Ganpatrao Savagave in Pune.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI

“The day we met at the office, I dropped Sadhana home, as it was getting dark. It was February 14, back in 2020, and there were many selling red roses and balloons on the streets. A flower seller insisted I buy roses when the car stopped at signal, I did not know what to do with them, so I gave them to her and that’s how it began,” Niteen says, laughing. 

The two had many lifestyle differences and arguments initially, especially since Niteen loves non-vegetarian food and Sadhana is a vegetarian. “Through counselling sessions, we have come to a common ground where we have both adjusted to each other’s needs and habits because we love each other,” he adds. Today, he has started a college and she participates in its daily running.

[email protected] 

Edited by Sunalini Mathew