by MARK MAGNIER
Retirees at an elder-care home in Trivandrum, India. PHOTO/Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
More of India’s urban families are rejecting traditional extended-family households, so older relatives are increasingly moving into elder-care facilities, an idea long stigmatized in the country.
TRIVANDRUM, India — R. Padmanathan Nair sits on a plastic chair in the entryway of the Heritage senior home talking about the fellow residents who treat him like family, which is helpful seeing as his own rarely visits.
His wife tried to abscond with their valuables, he said, so he gave the house to a niece, who ignored him after she got the property. Now his daughter is the only one who visits the 76-year-old retired teacher here in the capital of the southern state of Kerala, and that’s just a few times a year.
“But she only comes to get money from me,” said Nair, unshaven and dressed in a white lungi skirt-like garment and striped polo shirt, his voice rising in anger. “It’s a blessing there are homes like this.”
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