Deepa Chandrasekhar, 52, felt helpless in November last year. A banker settled in Bahrain for the last 25 years with her husband and children, she did not know who would take care of her mother Girija Rajaram, a Parkinson's patient whose health was starting to deteriorate rapidly.
Mrs Rajaram, 75, lives with her husband Rajaram, 80, in Powai, a suburb northeast of Mumbai, 2,400 kilometres from Bahrain.
"She became very frail and needed help with her weekly head bath. I also found that in countries like Canada and the UK, there are strong support systems for caregivers and caretakers ... [but] nothing, unfortunately in the Powai area," Ms Chandrasekhar, her parents' only child, told Asia Focus in an email interview.
A frantic search led her to Aaji Care, a for-profit social enterprise based in Mumbai, which offers caregivers for senior citizens in the megalopolis.
Dr Ajay Pillai, a psychotherapist and head of client relationships with Aaji Care, carried out a discreet assessment of Mrs Rajaram's mental and physical capabilities and suggested hourly care for her. In April this year, after her mother had a cataract operation, her daughter opted to have the hourly service converted to daily care.
Shubhangi Raut, 41, a care assistant with Aaji Care, visits the Rajarams' house every morning and helps her client bathe and do physical exercises. At night, another assistant, Jagruti Bombate, helps the former scientist change clothes and other tasks.
Ms Chandrasekhar said she was "extremely satisfied" with the services provided to her mother. Other satisfied Aaji Care customers include Rohit Nayak, a software developer based in the Netherlands, and Sanjay Pujare, a high-tech professional based in the United States, who has to travel very frequently.
Mr Nayak's parents, Kumbala Shantharama Nayak, 88, and Rohini Nayak, 82, who have orthopaedic and neurological disabilities, have benefited from the 24/7 care provided by Malini Shetkar and Piran Jhala of Aaji Care for the last five months.
Similarly, Mr Pujare has taken advantage of the company's daycare services for his octogenarian mother, Malati Madhav, relieving him of many worries.
According to Prasad Bhide, who set up Aaji Care in August 2012, his organisation provides 40,000 to 45,000 person-days of service in a year. He has more than 100 caregivers or companions registered with the company. Last year, Mr Bhide extended his operations further by setting up Aarambh (a Hindi variant for "beginning"), a daycare centre for the elderly.
A former chemical engineer who worked in IT in the United States before returning to India, Mr Bhide said his idea behind setting up Aaji Care was to give respect to the profession of home care. "Earlier it was looked down on. I wanted to give it dignity," he told Asia Focus.
Aaji Care provides a variety of services that include physiotherapy, nursing visits and geriatric care. It is one of a half-dozen or so senior-care organisations that have sprouted in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai in recent years. Mr Bhide says the sector is growing at a rate of about 15% annually in India.
He prefers to call Aaji Care "paid care". So does Archana Sharma, the founder and managing director of Samvedna Senior Care (SSC), a Gurgaon-based organisation that initially aimed to provide emotional care but has subsequently added dementia care to its portfolio.
SSC caters to clients in Gurgaon, Faridabad and New Delhi. Its staff of seven care specialists comprise clinical psychologists and trained social workers. Most of its caregivers are women. They include Sidra Tul Muntaha, 23, who holds a master's degree in social work.
Ms Muntaha currently caters to Mangho Rattanchand Laljani, 87, a retired accounting officer with Indian Railways, and Surinder Nath, a former scientist with the Indian Meteorological Department. Both men, whose sons are settled abroad, suffer from dementia.
Out of 37 million dementia patients in the world, 3.7 million live in India.
Ms Muntaha visits her clients three days a week. She reads the newspaper for Mr Laljani, helps him make telephone calls, do physical exercises and do his banking, and arranges his medicines. Moreover, she consciously makes an attempt to keep him away from negative thoughts.
In the case of Mr Nath, she tries to stimulate his brain by playing cards with him. She also encourages him to colour drawings. She has helped him learn WhatsApp, the mobile messaging service, which keeps him in constant touch with his sons.
Unlike Aaji Care and Samvedna Senior Care, Maya Care, an organisation headquartered in Pune, provides voluntary care to senior citizens in Pune and Mumbai. Founded in 2009, it relies on volunteers who include retired people, college students, homemakers and working professionals.
Suhas Godbole, a former cloth merchant and volunteer with Maya Care, visits Shrikant Phadke, a former bank officer, daily in an old-age home in Pune. He buys medicines, clothing and other essential items for Mr Phadke. "I visit him for an hour and a half daily from Monday to Saturday. His wife, who stays separately, pays me for his daily needs," Mr Godbole told Asia Focus.
Vidyadhar Joshi, 65, a retired bank officer-turned-volunteer, has three clients. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, he visits a blind professor called Sudhakar Kulkarni at the latter's home. Mr Joshi reads newspapers for Mr Kulkarni, takes him out on walks and even helps out in the latter's orchestra. "Kulkarni's musical group sings Hindi and Marathi film songs in programmes," he says.
Mr Joshi visits an old-age home for two and a half hours daily and occasionally goes to the Radhakrishna hospital to play chess with a 97-year-old patient there.
Mr Joshi's colleague Makarand Nimonkar, 61, a retired employee of a quasi-government organisation in Maharashtra, even sings songs to entertain his client Sharad Phadnis, 65, who stays in an old-age home in Pune.
Other groups involved in the growing field of services for seniors include ApnaCare, a comprehensive healthcare resources company providing health and wellness services in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. Serene Senior Living, meanwhile, has built retirement homes in Chennai, Coimbatore, Pondicherry and Bangalore. As well, there are many other free and paid old-age homes across the country.
The number of Indians aged 60 and above is estimated at more than 100 million. By 2025, they will make up 18% of the total population. A significant number of these people have children who live abroad. A survey by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in 2015 said the population of Indian expatriates was 16 million, the highest in the world.
Given the numbers and demographic trends, organisations offering senior care are woefully inadequate to take care of the burgeoning population of Indian seniors who cannot stay abroad with their children because of visa issues, logistics and other considerations.
"I strongly feel that more has to be done in terms of improving geriatric care and support in a rapidly ageing Indian population," says Ms Chandrasekhar, who expressed the hope that more social enterprises will explore the field further.