Abstract
Old age and women have both long been defined powerfully in India in terms of the multigenerational family. Yet over recent years, cosmopolitan middle-class Indians have been participating in new social forms that significantly challenge what people widely regard as traditional modes of aging, gender and family, as they confront—both embracing and critiquing—processes associated with "modern," "global" and "Western" living. One of the most striking social forms to emerge in this context is the Indian old age home. This article analyzes the trend of old-age-home living in India, as a new cultural space to imagine and practice gender, aging, family, and even national identity. The article seeks to counter simplistic arguments about "Westernization" and "traditional identity" both in India and around the world, as it examines how those involved with elder residences in India are creating unique Indian cultural versions of the modern, increasingly globally ubiquitous institution of the old age home. Those participating in India's new old age homes are innovatively striving to maintain older needs, desires and values, while also producing and fulfilling new ones, wrestling strategically with what they see as the changing conditions of their society and lives.