This Delhi family has cracked the formula for parenting parents

The matriarchs in this clan refuse to fit into any geriatric groove. The story starts with the 87-yearold grandmother, Pushpa Vadera, who lives in an independent house a few miles from her eldest daughter in Toronto. She went to Canada to help her daughter care for her newborn but stayed on, on the condition that she would work and live apart as she aged. “I have many friends and I love visiting the casino.She, the kids and her husband, have a routine that my social life may not fit into. But she is there (for me),” says Vadera, who is currently visiting her family in Delhi.
The balance of proximity and distance with parents is a tricky one to achieve but it is perhaps the most workable solution for dealing with a host of issues related to ageing — health, safety, mobility, and most importantly, loneliness and isolation. And the happy ratio that Vadera maintains between love and independence has also been adopted by her own daughter, Kumkum, 68, and granddaughter, Nisha Chopra Dey.
Nisha, an HR professional, her husband and two sons live barely 500 yards from Kumkum in a South Delhi enclave. Nisha, the older of two sisters, has always watched over her widowed mother like a hawk, making sure her lone existence doesn’t make her vulnerable. She makes sure she is driven around the city, her needs attended to and the nightly ritual of a chat maintained. “She needs looking after but I also respect her wish for independence,” says Nisha. Her husband, who works for a software firm, is also happy with the arrangement.
The two grandchildren have always been the centre of Kumkum’s universe but her own life as an individual has always been quite full. There are friends from the air force, a large ring of siblings and card games that pack her days. With a family scattered across the world, there is also a great deal of travel. “She has been a great daughter. But as we grow older, our temperaments change and if we were too much in each others’ lives we will end up bugging each other. I know that I can go to her any time but why be a burden? I have always been clear that I want to live on my own. At this distance I know that she is always there for me,” she says